Details
SUZIE ZUZEK (AMERICAN, 1920-2011)
Crazy Quilt
watercolor, ink, and graphite on paper
15 x 22 in. (38.1 x 55.9 cm.) (unframed)
Executed in 1969.
Provenance
Created for Key West Hand Print Fabrics, Inc., Key West, Florida, 1969.
Acquired by Lilly Pulitzer, Inc., Palm Beach, Florida, sold Key West Hand Print Fabrics, Inc., 1985 to private owners.
Acquired from the above by the present owner, 2016.
Literature
Susan Brown and Caroline Rennolds Milbank, Suzie Zuzek for Lilly Pulitzer: The Artist Behind an Iconic American Fashion Brand, 1962–1985, New York, 2020, p. 43, 142-143 (illustrated).
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Lot Essay

Crazy Quilt is Zuzek's interpretation of "cheater cloth", 19th century imitation patchwork. Here, each patch references an earlier Zuzek design. Versions of Hep Cats, Heraldry, Chicken Check and San Marco Mosaic are visible. This colorful work is one of Zuzek's most technical works, and showcases the artist's mastery of fall-on (the use of overlapping screens to create new colors). Here, five screens (black, white, yellow, blue and pink) are deftly combined to create seven colors (black, white, yellow, green, blue, purple, pink).

Crazy Quilt became a staple of Pulitzer's 'Men's Stuff' line, appearing on jeans, belts and blazers. The New York Times captured Mayor John V Lindsay wearing the blazer to the appropriately named 1970 Print Festival.

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Suzie Zuzek: The Artist Behind Lilly Pulitzer
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