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Effie Mae Howard, an African American quiltmaker whose dynamic patchwork creations -- made under the pseudonym Rosie Lee Tompkins -- were critically acclaimed and compared to the best abstract painting, was found dead of unknown causes in her Richmond, Calif., home on Dec. 1, according to her friend and quilt scholar Eli Leon.
She was 70.
Ms. Howard, who zealously guarded her privacy and would not be photographed or interviewed, created vivid works with scraps of many fabrics and colors, pieces of grain sacks, flags and T-shirts, among other things.
She improvised her quilt patterns "with dreamy confidence, reveling in color and the forgiving quality of her materials," wrote Chronicle art critic Kenneth Baker, reviewing the artist's first one-woman show, at the Berkeley Art Museum in 1997. "Without contrivance, her work brings to mind some of the finest achievements of abstract painting."
That show was organized by curator Lawrence Rinder, who put together the prestigious Biennial Exhibition at New York's Whitney Museum of American Art in 2002 that included Ms. Howard's work.
That exposure brought her work to the attention of the wider art world and rave reviews from many critics. One of her pieces is now in the Whitney's permanent collection.
"Here is inventiveness and originality so palpable and intense that each work seems like a new and total risk, a risk so extreme that only utter faith in the power of the creative spirit could have engendered it," Rinder wrote of the artist's work.
One of 15 children, Ms. Howard was born in rural southeast Arkansas into a poor family that put every piece of cloth to good use. She learned the art of quilt-making from her mother. She left school before attending high school and lived in Milwaukee and Chicago, eventually settling in the East Bay in 1958.
Ms. Howard, who was married and divorced twice, took adult education classes in Berkeley and various nursing courses. After settling in Richmond, she worked as a practical nurse in rest homes. On the side, she made quilts, which were shown in later years at museums around the country under the name Rosie Lee Tompkins, a persona she revealed to only a handful of people. One of them was Leon, the quilt expert, who has written numerous catalogs for exhibitions featuring her work.
Ms. Howard was a deeply religious person who "felt that she was God's instrument," Leon said. "Her patchworks were designed by Him; she was grateful to have found this uplifting way of worshiping."
It was Leon who came up with the pseudonym Rosie Lee Tompkins for Ms. Howard, who didn't want her name used, when her work was first shown in a 1988 quilt exhibition at San Francisco's Museum of Craft and Folk Art.
The Shelburne Museum in Vermont is planning a one-woman exhibition of the artist's work scheduled for May 2007.
Ms. Howard is survived by her mother, whose name family members wish to keep private; two sons, Sammy Howard of Oakland and Alvin Howard of Arkansas; five sisters, including Maxcine McCullough and Annette Kinkston of Oakland, Maxine Daniels of Richmond and Angila Brown of Hayward; six brothers, including Maccuerey Martin of Berkeley and Maurice Martin and Murry Lee Martin of Oakland; six grandchildren and eight great-grandchildren.
A private funeral was planned.
c.2006 San Francisco Chronicle
