Textile Museum Press Room

Japan’s Tawaraya Workshop has produced exquisite silks for more than 500 years for uses which include Imperial garments and Noh theater costumes. A selection of these precious textiles and kimono will be featured in the unprecedented exhibition “Woven Treasures of Japan’s Tawaraya Workshop” opening at The Textile Museum on March 23. This exhibition was organized with the help of Hyoji Kitagawa, the 18^th-generation head of the workshop, who was recently designated a Living National Treasure by the Japanese government.

The Exhibition

“Woven Treasures” includes 37 pieces on loan from the Tawaraya workshop, including lengths of fabric and completed costumes. This is first time these silks will be exhibited in the United States and English-language research and study of these textiles has been scant. Four uchigi (colorful robes worn underneath formal outer garments) will be displayed, in addition to a kosode robe used in Noh theater. The untailored textiles include silks commissioned for the Imperial Household and the Ise Grand Shrine. The historical basis and aesthetics of each design offer greater understanding Japanese court tradition and culture.

Attention to detail has helped the Tawaraya workshop earn its reputation for producing the finest yusoku orimono (silks in patterns, weaves, and color combinations traditionally reserved for the aristocracy). The workshop bases many of its designs on historical precedents, including ancient textiles (jodai-gire) often preserved in Japan’s Buddhist temples. One example on view is a reconstruction of an 8^th-century twill by Hyoji Kitagawa. In a painstaking effort to recreate this centuries-old design, Kitagawa reformulated an acorn dye and mimicked the ancient practice of wetting yarns before weaving.

One of the only workshops eligible to produce cloth for Imperial ceremonial robes, Tawaraya has a long history of commissions for state celebrations. The workshop created the silk for the robes worn by His Majesty the Emperor Akihito and Her Majesty the Empress Michiko of Japan for their 1989 coronation. “Woven Treasures” features the silks used to make these garments, in addition to silks created for the wedding of Crown Prince Naruhito and Crown Princess Masako.

Untailored silk used in the poetic Noh drama of Japan is also included in the exhibition. While Imperial costume tends to make use of subtle juxtapositions of color and design, the fabrics used for Noh theater enhance the performance with bright hues and large patterns.

The Tawaraya Workshop

The Nishijin neighborhood in Kyoto, Japan ranked alongside Lyon, France and Milan, Italy as one of the world’s greatest centers of luxury silk production for centuries. The Tawaraya workshop, led by Hyoji Kitagawa, was founded more than 500 years ago. Kitawaga learned his craft from his father, Heiro Kitagawa, and both men were designated Living National Treasures by the Japanese government for carrying forward a rich cultural tradition. As head of the workshop, Kitagawa upholds techniques and aesthetic standards passed down many centuries.

“Woven Treasures” opens as the future of the Tawaraya workshop is uncertain; the demand for fine silks has waned in recent years and Kitagawa has not pressured his sons to undertake this challenging career. This exhibition, along with its accompanying exhibition text and complimentary gallery guide, is a rare opportunity to understand a national artistic heritage from the perspective of its maker.

Exhibition Organization and Support
“Woven Treasures of Japan’s Tawaraya Workshop” is part of the National Cherry Blossom Festival, a city-wide event celebrating the 100^th anniversary of the gift of trees from Japan. “Woven Treasures of Japan’s Tawaraya Workshop” is supported by grants from S&R Foundation, E. Rhodes and Leona B. Carpenter Foundation, The Japan Foundation, and Asian Cultural Council.

“Woven Treasures” was curated by Lee Talbot, curator of Eastern Hemisphere Collections, The Textile Museum with the guidance of Hyoji Kitagawa, head of the Tawaraya Workshop.

Download a PDF version of the full-length press release.

High-resolution images are available for download. Request a link to the online gallery.

For more information, contact Katy Clune, Communications and Marketing Manager, kclune@textilemuseum.org, (202) 667-0441, ext. 77.

Images: Uchigi (ceremonial court robe), 21st cen­tury. Courtesy of Hyoji Kitagawa.  18^th-generation head of the Tawaraya workshop, Living National Treasure Hyoji Kitagawa.

The Textile Museum is home to an extraordinary collection of historic textiles.  For the exhibition “Sourcing the Museum” these pieces provided inspiration for eleven fiber artists to create new works of art, which will be on view at The Textile Museum from March 23 through August 19, 2012.    

Invited to participate by world-renowned weaver and scholar Jack Lenor Larsen, the chosen artists are diverse in background, preferred technique, and aesthetic, but all at the height of their careers.  Larsen said of the exhibition, “Witness here the museum as springboard for new responses to earlier, sometimes ancient works. The resulting contemporary textiles are diverse in scale and weight, media and power, and much varied, too, in distance from the mentor work…and, indeed, from the artists’ usual mode of expression.”

Larsen encouraged the participants to move beyond their preferred materials and techniques.  The result is an incredible diversity of new textile arts—from a dense photographic tapestry, to a diaphanous silk hanging, to a political straitjacket.  These and all of the new works will be displayed alongside the historic pieces that inspired them, underscoring the connection between past and the present.

About the Exhibition

The word “museum” derives from the ancient Greek mouseion—”temple of the Muses”—home of goddesses believed to inspire creativity.  “Sourcing the Museum” casts The Textile Museum as muse, as Jack Lenor Larsen sought out contemporary textile artists to more deeply explore the connections between past objects and contemporary inspiration.

Jack Lenor Larsen is internationally known as a textile designer, author, and collector.  He is respected as a leader in the field of textile arts, and as an advocate for traditional and contemporary crafts. He began designing textiles in the 1950’s, and his innovations in color and texture have become exemplary of modernist design.

For “Sourcing the Museum,” Larsen assembled artists who would approach the task with superior technical mastery and aesthetic abilities, including Olga de Amaral (Bogota, Colombia), James Bassler (Palm Springs, CA), Polly Barton (Santa Fe, NM), Archie Brennan (New Baltimore, NY), Lia Cook (Berkeley, CA), Helena Hernmarck (Ridgefield, CT), Ayako Nikamoto (Chigasaki, Japan), Jon Eric Riis (Atlanta, GA), Warren Seelig (Rockland, ME), Kay Sekimachi (Berkeley, CA), and Ethel Stein (Croton-on-Hudson, NY).

The 11 invited artists were asked to take a deeper look at pieces from The Textile Museum’s collection of more than 19,000 historical textiles, including examples from East Asia, the Islamic world, Africa, Europe, and the Southern Hemisphere, and spanning over  5,000 years, dating from 3,000 B.C.E. to the present.

Each artist had their own method for selecting a piece from the collection for the project.  Some confined themselves to a particular origin,or a specific technique.  Jon Eric Riis remembered a work seen on display at the museum decades earlier.  Archie Brennan decided to leave the choice to fate, picking his pieces by selecting at random three item numbers from the museum’s database. Once the piece was selected, the artists returned to their studios and created new pieces in response to their chosen “muse.”

In the spirit of the East Asian calendar’s Year of the Dragon, just days after the Chinese New Year, The Textile Museum is opening a playful and colorful exhibition titled “Dragons, Nagas, and Creatures of the Deep” (February 3, 2012 – January 6, 2013).  The exhibition presents 16 objects drawn from cultures as diverse as the ancient Mediterranean world, imperial China and contemporary South America, portraying dragons as everything from medieval fire-breathing beasts to friendly and beneficent water gods.

A Global Beast

While dragons are born from fantasy, their depiction is often surprisingly similar across time and place. “Dragons, Nagas, and Creatures of the Deep” reveals these shared stylistic roots.

The English word “dragon” derives from the Greek drákōn, meaning “water snake” or “large serpent.” A 5th-century tunic panel from Egypt depicts a Nereid (sea goddess) riding a mythical horse-fish beast. Water dragons were also common throughout Southeast Asia.  In the folklore and decorative arts of India and Southeast Asia, deities taking the form of fantastical snakes, or nagas, abound. Nagas controlled rain—the life-force of rice-growing peoples throughout the region—and were also considered connections to the spirit world. Included in the exhibition are two textiles decorated with nagas from the Lao-Tai people of Laos, precious pieces once used in ritual and shamanistic ceremonies.

Greco-Roman stylizations influenced medieval artists in Western Europe, who began associating dragons with fire. Many Western cultures portrayed dragons as terrifying, fire-breathing beasts to be feared by the common people and destroyed by sword-wielding protectors. Stories of heroes fighting serpentine beasts also play out in ancient Near Eastern cultures, depicted in the exhibition on luxurious velvet from the Safavid dynasty (1501-1722) of present-day Iran.

This exhibition demonstrates contemporary translations of dragon imagery as well: a mola panel from Panama, made by a Kuna woman in the 1960s, playfully interprets a dragon above the colorful letters “D-R-A-G-O-N”. The source for this image is likely a children’s alphabet book.

The Dragon as a Symbol of Power

Whether creatures of good or evil, dragons in every culture were unquestionably powerful, and became a symbol for both prestige and protection.

In China, certain styles of dragons were reserved for use by the emperor and ruling class, and the way they were illustrated was determined by social rules outlined in dynastic laws. For example, use of front-facing dragons was prohibited for anyone below the noble classes. Only the imperial family was permitted to wear dragons with 5 claws. A stunningly woven 18th century coat made during the Qing dynasty includes several dragons with one claw painstakingly removed from each foot—indicating its second owner altered the garment to suit their social standing.

When the Buddhist faith spread to East Asia in the first centuries CE, people in this region began to regard dragons as protectors of Buddha and Buddhist law. A rug which covered a column in a Buddhist temple in Tibet, Mongolia, or western China illustrates an auspicious dragon surrounded by the symbols of Buddhist law. While red flames emanate from its body, this dragon protects from evil and harm.

The Year of the Dragon is said to be a year of energy and change.  The image of the dragon has been shifted and reshaped in cultures throughout time and across the world, but they fascinate and delight us in all of their forms.

Download a PDF version of the full-length press release.

High-resolution images are available for download. Request a link to the online gallery.

For more information, contact Katy Clune, Communications and Marketing Manager, kclune@textilemuseum.org, (202) 667-0441, ext. 77.

Details of dragon faces from a dragon robe (China, late 18^th/early 19^th century, TM 1973.30.1, Gift of Brigadier General Regan Fuller), a mola panel (Panama, 1960s, TM 1985.56.56, Donated from the Collection of Jonathan Leonard) and a hip wrapper (Indonesia, 1920s, TM 1985.57.34, Gift of Alice Bradley Sheldon; collected by Mary Hastings Bradley).