Sake tasting at The TM on March 12

02/22/2010 — tmpressroom

WHAT: Sake, an alcoholic beverage made from rice, has been crafted in Japan for millennia and is now enjoyed throughout the world. Join us for this special evening event and sample several varieties of fine sake. Attendees will also enjoy a curator-led tour of the museum’s current exhibition, Contemporary Japanese Fashion: The Mary Baskett Collection. Fee: $45/TM members; $55/non-members. Advance registration required; space is limited. Call (202) 667-0441, ext. 64 to register. Sponsored by Happi Enterprises.

WHEN: Friday, March 12, 6-8 p.m.

WHERE: The Textile Museum, 2320 S Street NW, Washington DC 20008; Metro: Dupont Circle, Q Street exit

MEDIA CONTACT: Cyndi Bohlin, (202) 667-0441, ext. 78 or cbohlin@textilemuseum.org

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This week’s programs at The TM postponed

02/10/2010 — tmpressroom

The Textile Museum remains closed today due to inclement weather. Please visit the museum’s website or call 202-667-0441 for the most current information on opening status.

The Textile Museum has also rescheduled the following programs originally planned for this week:

LUNCHTIME GALLERY TALK
Sourcing the West
POSTPONED TO WEDNESDAY, FEB. 17, 12 PM
Led by Rebecca A.T. Stevens, Consulting Curator, Contemporary Textiles. Free; no reservations required.

EVENINGS AT THE TM
Creative Impulses: Japanese Fashion and Textiles
POSTPONED TO FRIDAY, MARCH 26, 6 PM
Presented by Yoshiko Wada. Fee: $20/members; $25/non-members. Advance registration required; space is limited. SOLD OUT. To be added to the waiting list, call (202) 667-0441, ext. 64. Evenings at The TM is sponsored by Eleanor T. Rosenfeld.

MEMBERS’ GALLERY TALK AND TOUR
The Art of Living: Textile Furnishings from the Permanent Collection
POSTPONED TO SUNDAY, FEB. 21, 1 PM
Led by Associate Curator Lee Talbot. Free; reservations required. Call (202) 667-0441, ext. 64. Limited to 35 participants.

PUBLIC GALLERY TALK AND TOUR
The Art of Living: Textile Furnishings from the Permanent Collection
POSTPONED TO SUNDAY, FEB. 21, 2 PM
Led by Associate Curator Lee Talbot. Free; no reservations required. Limited to 35 participants.

MATSURI: A MIDWINTER JAPANESE FESTIVAL FOR FAMILIES
POSTPONED TO SUNDAY, MARCH 7, 1-5 PM
This free festival offers hands-on art activities, demonstrations and performances for all ages. Free; no reservations required. Presented in cooperation with the Japan-America Society of Washington, D.C.

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Work by designer Lucienne Day, who died Jan. 30, on view in upcoming TM exhibition

02/04/2010 — tmpressroom
Lucienne Day

Lucienne Day in 1952. Image courtesy the Whitworth Art Gallery, the University of Manchester.

The Textile Museum was saddened to learn that designer Lucienne Day, whose work will be featured in The Textile Museum’s 2010 spring/summer exhibition, Art by the Yard: Women Design Mid-Century Britain, passed away on January 30, 2010 at the age of 93. Britain’s best known textile designer in the post-World War II period, Day created award-winning designs for wallpapers, tea towels, carpets and ceramics. She was especially renowned for her lively, colorful furnishing fabric patterns.

“Lucienne Day’s career was unparalleled,” said Lee Talbot, The Textile Museum’s Associate Curator of Eastern Hemisphere Collections and Coordinating Curator of Art by the Yard. “Her remarkable body of textile art remains a fresh source of artistic inspiration and visual delight, even into the 21st century. I am pleased that we will be able to celebrate her creative designs with our Art by the Yard exhibition.”

A graduate of the Croydon School of Art (1934-7) and the Royal College of Art (1937-1940), Day’s commercial success began with her groundbreaking fabric Calyx, printed in 1951 by Heal Fabrics. Although the manufacturer was initially skeptical about Calyx’s avant-garde design, they decided to take a chance with the young designer’s refreshing and innovative ideas. This proved to be a brilliant choice for Heal, as Day soon became the star in the new era of British design. Her strengths as a textile designer stemmed from her sophisticated color choices, stylized references to nature, abstract forms and intriguing patterns inspired by Modernist painters such as Joan Miró and Paul Klee. Color was critical to the perfectionist and accomplished Day, so she worked closely with Heal Fabrics to ensure that her vision was properly executed in each “colourway” version of the final product. Although she worked for other furnishing fabric firms, it was Heal Fabrics for whom she produced over 70 textile designs.

Helix, 1970, Lucienne Day

Helix, 1970, Lucienne Day. Collection of Jill A. Wiltse and H. Kirk Brown, III.

Lucienne Day and her husband, furniture designer Robin Day (b. 1915), were key arbiters of taste as Britain’s most celebrated designer couple and together they popularized a sleek new aesthetic in British interiors. The couple was featured in a 1954 advertisement for a Hillman family car and a 1955 ad campaign for Smirnoff vodka. Magazine articles, such as one in the January 1954 issue of House and Garden spotlighting the Day’s London townhouse, allowed eager fans and consumers to peruse their choices in home décor. Lucienne and Robin Day came to personify the modern style in mid-century Britain, and consumers strove to emulate the lifestyle of this talented, successful, and attractive couple. Like many designers in the optimistic post-WWII period, they both believed in modern design’s transformative power to shape a better world, and sought to create beautiful, useful objects accessible to people of all income levels.

Art by the Yard: Women Design Mid-Century Britain, on view at The Textile Museum May 15, 2010 through September 12, 2010, illustrates the evolution of Day’s design style over the decades, from the playful linearity of her patterns in the early 1950s, to her experimentation with bold visual effects using black silk-screen patterns over fields of color in the late 1950s and early ‘60s, and finally her dynamic Pop style of the late 1960s and early ‘70s. Art by the Yard also includes textiles designed by two of Lucienne Day’s most accomplished contemporaries: Jacqueline Groag (1903-1985) and Marian Mahler (1911-1983).

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Upcoming TM Exhibit Features Textile Designed by the Late Artist Kenneth Noland

01/13/2010 — tmpressroom

A textile designed by the celebrated American abstract artist Kenneth Noland, who passed away on January 5, 2010, will be featured in an exhibition opening February 12, 2010 at The Textile Museum in Washington, D.C. The piece, Arizona Sky, dates to 1996 and was one of a series of tapestries designed by Noland and made by Navajo weavers.

Arizona Sky, woven by Mary Lee Begay and designed by Kenneth Noland

The textile will be featured in the exhibition The Art of Living: Textile Furnishings from the Permanent Collection, on view at The Textile Museum February 12, 2010 through January 9, 2011. The exhibit highlights the historical and cultural breadth of the museum’s collection through the display of 17 furnishing fabrics, including rugs, chair covers, cushions, wall hangings, and other textiles used in domestic interiors. The Art of Living provides a historical context for the museum’s major spring/summer exhibition, Art by the Yard: Women Design Mid-Century Britain, which focuses on the careers of three 20th-century British designers and the socio-historical circumstances that informed their design choices.

Arizona Sky illustrates the collaborative effort between Noland (1924-2010), Navajo weaver Mary Lee Begay (1941- ), and tapestry producer Gloria F. Ross (1923-1998), who was also a trustee at The Textile Museum. Ross endeavored to heighten public appreciation of tapestry as an art form, bringing painters and weavers together to create outstanding works of textile art. In 1979, Ross began to work with Navajo weavers to create tapestries based on designs by Noland, whose bold geometric paintings she saw as well suited for Navajo looms and colors. Navajo weavers typically visualize their designs mentally, rarely committing them to paper, but for this unusual collaboration six Navajo weavers agreed to work from Noland’s painted designs. 

“The art world has lost an influential and inspiring figure with the passing of Kenneth Noland,” says Lee Talbot, The Textile Museum’s Associate Curator for Eastern Hemisphere Collections and exhibition curator for The Art of Living: Textile Furnishings from the Permanent Collection. “We are proud to honor his legacy by showcasing his design in this exhibition.”

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Upcoming Exhibit Looks at Interior Design Fabrics from Around the World

12/08/2009 — tmpressroom
Tent Hanging

Tent hanging, Golconda, India, 1650 – 1780. The Textile Museum 6.129. Acquired by George Hewitt Myers in 1947.

In February 2010, The Textile Museum will begin a year-long look at the role of fabrics in interior design with the opening of The Art of Living: Textile Furnishings from the Permanent Collection. The exhibition highlights the historical and cultural breadth of the museum’s collection through the display of 17 furnishing fabrics, including rugs, chair covers, cushions, wall hangings, and other textiles used in domestic interiors. Made to provide protection and comfort, and to embellish homes from the ancient Mediterranean world to 20th-century America, these fabrics document the lifestyles enjoyed by their original owners as well as the technical and artistic accomplishment of their creators. The Art of Living: Textile Furnishings from the Permanent Collection will be on view February 12, 2010 through January 9, 2011.

About the Exhibition

The Art of Living explores how homes and furnishings shape the human experience of everyday life, and how each culture creates living environments that reflect its own social traditions, aesthetic preferences, political and economic circumstances, and local climate. The exhibition focuses particularly on the design of textile furnishings and the people who created their ornamental patterns. “Although one maker’s talented hands may produce a textile from fiber to finished product, more often the combined skills of many people—from spinners, dyers and designers to weavers or embroiderers—create the finished cloth,” explains exhibition curator Lee Talbot, associate curator for Eastern Hemisphere Collections at The Textile Museum. 

The Art of Living provides a historical context for the museum’s major spring/summer exhibition, Art by the Yard: Women Design Mid-Century Britain, which focuses on the careers of three 20th-century British designers and the socio-historical circumstances that informed their design choices. The Art of Living sheds light on these women’s forebears—the talented artists who created textile patterns in centuries past.

Exhibition Highlights

The earliest textile in The Art of Living is a 5th-century tapestry-woven fragment found in Egypt, which may have covered a bolster pillow. In the Roman and Byzantine Empires, as in many urban cultures around the world, professional artists drew designs on paper to be adapted for a variety of media. A few of their drawings on papyrus have survived, some of which appear to be cartoons for tapestry woven fabrics. This fragment features scrolling vines, rosettes and birds—motifs developed by artists in the Mediterranean world but adopted by designers worldwide. 

An 11th- or 12th-century Chinese silk documents how the naturalistic rendering of bird and flower patterns, as well as the tapestry technique, spread along the Silk Road from the West to East Asia. Like their counterparts in the West, Chinese artists typically drew cartoons for tapestries and designs for other fine decorative arts on paper. With the export of silks and ceramics, the flower and animal patterns developed over the centuries by Chinese artists became some of the most influential designs in the world. In this exhibition, a throne cover from Bhutan appliquéd with bird and flower patterns and a colonial Peruvian wall hanging fragment depicting phoenixes and peonies illustrate the global reach of these decorative motifs.

The Designers

Although the names of very few textile designers from the ancient world are known today, surviving records from 18th century onward, particularly in Western countries, more readily link the names of individual artists to particular designs. Four textiles in The Art of Living can be attributed to known designers: Ghiyath al-Din Ali, a designer/weaver who achieved high rank at the court of Abbas I (1571-1629) in Iran; William Morris (1834-1896), the seminal 19th-century British designer; and Kenneth Noland (1924- ), an American abstract painter who provided designs for a series of tapestries woven by Navajo weavers. Bridging Art by the Yard with The Art of Living is a special loan from the Cora Gingsberg Gallery—an exquisite silk designed Anna Maria Garthwaite (1690–1763), one of Britain’s most prolific and highly regarded textile designers of the 18th century. 

Whether anonymous or highly celebrated, the designers represented in The Art of Living enhanced the daily lives of the people who originally used these beautifully patterned fabrics in their homes, and they continue to delight viewers today with their artistry.

For more information or images, please contact Cyndi Bohlin at (202) 667-0441, ext. 78, or by e-mail at cbohlin@textilemuseum.org.

For more information, or to view the press release, CLICK HERE (pdf)

To see selections from the exhibition, CLICK HERE (pdf)

To request images for press use online, CLICK HERE

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Batik Collections of President Obama’s Mother, Ann Dunham

06/08/2009 — tmpressroom

A Lady Found a Culture in its Cloth: Barack Obama’s Mother and Indonesian Batiks

August 9- August 23, 2009batikObama

August 5, Washington, D.C. — The Textile Museum is proud to present the special exhibition
A Lady Found a Culture in its Cloth: Barack Obama’s Mother and Indonesian Batiks,
featuring batik patterned textiles from the collection of Ann Dunham, President Obama’s mother,
from August 9-23, 2009. This marks the final stop in a national tour of the exhibition. Washingtonians and visitors to the nation’s capital will not want to miss this unique look at the Obama family and the Southeast Asian culture from which these fabrics originated! The Textile Museum is presenting the exhibition in coordination with the Embassy of the Indonesia and co-hosting a gala event with the embassy at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel on Saturday, August 8. The exhibition is made
possible with the support by President Obama’s sister, Maya Soetoro-Ng, and her family.

About the Exhibition

Ann Dunham loved and collected many handcrafted objects, including textiles. As a teenager, she wove wall hangings in earthy shades of brown and green
for her own enjoyment. After marrying Lolo Soetoro and moving to Indonesia in the 1960s with her son Barack Obama, she was naturally drawn to the vibrant textile arts of her new home. She began to amass a collection of Javanese batiks — fabrics patterned by using a wax-resist process — from which this exhibition is drawn. These textiles were readily seen on city and village streets in this Southeast Asian nation at that time. Her interests in batik patterned cloth were complex. She did not acquire rare or expensive pieces, but rather contemporary examples that were an expression of a living tradition, patterned with both classic designs and those of passing fashion. The lives of the batik makers also fascinated
her. While earning degrees in anthropology from the University of Hawaii in the 1970s and 1980s, she focused on how to help craftspeople, like those creating batik in Indonesia. She
worked with the Ford Foundation in Jakarta and later with USAID and the World Bank, guiding projects beneficial to poor women through micro and small enterprises. She eventually set up microcredit projects all over Indonesia as well as in Pakistan and Kenya. The wide variation in the batiks on view in this exhibition reflects the range of colors and
patterns that captured her imagination and provides a window into Indonesian culture.

About the August 8 Gala

A gala event at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel on Saturday, August 8 will celebrate Dunham’s collection as well as Indonesian culture, and offer invited guests a special preview of the
exhibition at The Textile Museum. The gala will be hosted by H.E. Sudjadnan Parnohadiningrat the Indonesian Ambassador to the U.S. and Muhammad Lutfi, Chairman of the Investment Coordinating Board of Indonesia, and attended by Maya Soetoro-Ng, President Obama’s sister. During the reception preceding the gala dinner, selected pieces from Dunham’s collection will be on view, as well as batiks owned by Ani Yudhoyon, the First Lady of Indonesia, and other Indonesian handwoven textiles provided by Cita Tenun Indonesia (Indonesian Handwoven Textile Association). The dinner program will feature a fashion show by two top young Indonesian designers, Priyo Octaviano and Sebastian Gunawan, who will feature their latest haute couture collections made from handwoven materials influenced by traditional Indonesian textiles. Entertainment will include performances of traditional Indonesian dance and an exotic angklung orchestra. The gala is made possible in part by The Textile Museum, the U.S.-Indonesia Society
(USINDO), the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the USASEAN Business Council and the Asia Society, as well as the Embassy of Indonesia. 

About The Textile Museum


Established in 1925 by George Hewitt Myers, The Textile Museum is an international center for the exhibition, study, collection and preservation of the textile arts. The Museum explores the role that textiles play in the daily and ceremonial life of individuals the world over. Special attention is given to textiles of the Near East, Asia, Africa and the indigenous cultures of the Americas. The Museum also presents exhibitions of historical and contemporary quilts, and fiber art. With a collection of more than 18,000 textiles and rugs, The Textile Museum is a unique and valuable resource for people locally, nationally and internationally. The Textile Museum is located at 2320 ‘S’ Street, NW in Washington, D.C. The Museum is open Tuesday through Saturday 10 am to 5 pm and Sunday 1 pm to 5 pm. Admission is free with a suggested donation of $5 for non-members. For more information, call (202) 667-0441 or visit www.textilemuseum.org.

For more information, or to view the press release  CLICK HERE (pdf)

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Contemporary Japanese Fashion at the TM

06/08/2009 — tmpressroom

Contemporary Japanese Fashion: The Mary Baskett Collectionmiyake copy
Oct. 17, 2009 – April 11, 2010

In the 1970s and early 1980s, Japanese designers Issey Miyake, Rei Kawakubo and Yohji Yamamoto shocked the fashion world by introducing avant-garde styles that challenged received Western notions of “chic.” Informed in part by Japanese traditions such as the kimono, obi and the art of origami, these designers produced radical garments with shapes and textures often incongruous with the natural contours of the human body. Their designs-characterized by asymmetry, raw edges, unconventional construction, oversized proportions and monochromatic palettes-effectively overthrew existing norms and set the stage for the postmodernist movement in the fashion industry. Miyake, Yamamoto, and Kawakubo remain three of the most successful designers in today’s fashion world, and under their tutelage a new generation of Japanese talent has emerged.

This exhibition, which was originally shown at the Cincinnati Art Museum, will include garments from the collection of Mary Baskett, an art dealer and former curator of prints at the Cincinnati Art Museum who has been collecting and wearing Japanese high fashion since the 1960s

for more information CLICK HERE

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Free Festival Celebrating the American Quilt

05/05/2009 — tmpressroom

May 4, 2009-

Free Festival at the Textile Museum Celebrates the American Quilt

2007 Celebration of Textiles

2007 Celebration of Textiles

 

Celebration of Textiles, at The Textile Museum.  The Textile Museum will hold its 31st annual Celebration of Textiles on Saturday, June 6, 10 am – 4 pm and on Sunday, June 7, 1 – 5 pm. This free festival for all ages invites visitors to explore the textile arts and cultures of the world through hands-on activities and artist demonstrations in the Museum’s gardens, historic buildings and current exhibitions.

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