Bettye Kimbrell

Bettye Jean Whitson Kimbrell (November 22, 1936 – October 18, 2016) was a master folk artist for quilting, and one of the charter members of the North Jefferson Quilter's Guild in Mount Olive, Alabama.

In 1995, Kimbrell won the Alabama Folk Heritage Award, the highest honor for the traditional arts in Alabama. Kimbrell received national attention in 2008 when she was one of eleven folk artists to receive the National Heritage Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, the highest honor in the folk and traditional arts in the United States. Her quilts have been exhibited at the Birmingham Museum of Art (2008), have toured five cities in Belgium in the "Schatten van/in Mensen" exhibit (2010–11), and were displayed in five cities in China as part of an exhibit sponsored by the United States Embassy (2012–2013).