User:Jessihawkins/Alma Wallace Lesch

Alma Wallace Lesch Alma Wallace Lesch (1917-1999) was an American textile artist. She was known for her modest yet undisputed entrance onto the textile & studio quilt art movement after two of her pieces were purchased by the Johnson Wax company and placed on exhibition in the Objects: USA tour in 1969. She is a pioneer of the national crafts movement, and the "undisputed grande dame of Kentucky textiles".

Early Life and Education

Alma Wallace Lesch was born in 1917 in McCracken County, Kentucky. She had a love of fabric at a young age as evidenced by the fact that she completed her first quilt at the age of 12. She received her teaching degree from Murray State in 1941, and taught elementary grades in Louisville, Kentucky.

She met & married her husband Ted Lesch in Louisville while teaching. They moved to Sheperdsville in 1948, and her husband, a pharmacist, took over the corner drug store.

Alma studied art and graduated with her degree from the University of Louisville in 1961. She was offered a teaching position at the Louisville School of Art and taught from 1961-1978.