Contemporary International Tapestry


Book Description

Tapestries from 40 top international artists representing three generations show the best examples of contemporary approaches to the handwoven art. Featured are more than 50 examples, including full views of each artwork, as well as details. Tapestries are accompanied by biographical information on each artist, hand-picked for this collection because they are at the forefront of their field. The book also includes insightful essays, statements, and information about the field of tapestry, including artist and gallery contact information. This one-of-a-kind collection of works was curated by the author, Carol Russell, for an exhibition at Hunterdon Art Museum in Clinton, New Jersey, in 2015. Included are essays by the curator, as well as by Archie Brennan, Christine Laffer, and Dr. Lycia Trouton.




Tapestry Handbook


Book Description

This classic book, now completely revised and expanded, has long been a favorite of both teachers and students of tapestry weaving. Learn to weave tapestry on any kind of loom, vertical or horizontal. Take an intriguing journey to make an elaborate, but logical, tapestry sampler. The process is explained step-by-step and illustrated with over 300 beautiful color photographs and diagrams of tapestry techniques. Along the way, color theories applicable to tapestry are explained. You will be inspired by the ancient art form explored on these colorful pages. Treasures from museums and prominent contemporary artists relate the historic significance of tapestries and their limitless range of visual power. Learn how archival finishing and mounting your handwoven textile completes the project. A chapter on designing for tapestry provides tools for translating future concepts into compositions. Be a part of this ancient, yet completely modern, weaving tradition.




The Art of Modern Tapestry


Book Description

Setting out to celebrate, document and discuss the work and role of Dovecote Studios, an international tapestry workshop founded in Edinburgh in 1912, this ground-breaking publication uniquely explores the artistic value, nature and identity of tapestry through images, essays and the commentaries of weavers, artists and patrons.




The Art Is the Cloth


Book Description

A colorful guided tour from an expert, enabling weavers, textile lovers, and art lovers to notice and appreciate what tapestries can do and how they do it. This guide from expert tapestry weaver and historian Sidore gives how-to strategies enabling weavers and nonweavers to notice and appreciate the meaning of these artworks. You'll discover much to enjoy in photos of more than 300 tapestries from the 12th to the 21st centuries. Sidore enables you to think about the weavings in ways you have never before considered as she groups pieces that talk with each other--and that also converse with the viewer. Enjoy learning basic elements of weaving to help you become increasingly sophisticated in understanding what you're seeing. Then, learn six ways in which tapestries can call attention to themselves as cloth. This eye-opening guide to seeing explains the great range of materials and visual themes, the use of trompe l'oeil, the importance of the direction in which the weaver weaves, and more. After this learning experience, you'll bring smarter eyes to your museum wandering, deeper enjoyment to your collection and purchases, and surprising new skills and creativity to your weaving of fibers . . . and of life.




Demons, Yarns & Tales


Book Description

Introduction by Sarah Kent.




From Tapestry to Fiber Art


Book Description

At the end of World War II, the art of tapestry experienced anews boom and throughout Europe national workshops and factories were renewed. By organizing the International Tapestry Biennials in 1962, the city of Lausanne came to be recognised as the capital of contemporary textile art and centre of New Tapestry movement.00Illustrated with more than 100 works and views of rooms, most of them unpublished, the book testifies to the impact and vitality of these exhibitions and their impact abroad. The historical research carried out by Toms Pauli Foundation, heir to the International Center for Ancient and Modern Tapestry, is enriched by the essays of specialists from four countries with a textile tradition: France, Poland, USA and Japan.







Tapestry


Book Description

Tapestry: A Woven Narrative initially focuses on European tapestry and features significant historical images derived from extensive international tapestry collections. The book addresses the developing status of historical factory houses, the differing roles of tapestry artists and manufacturers, discusses how these roles have changed over time and looks in further detail at the socio-historical context of the featured works. The book also looks in detail at the current tapestry scene, beginning in earnest with the textile work of Henry Moore 20 years ago. Now, established artists across the globe, significantly in North America, Australia and New Zealand, have begun appropriating the medium to present their work and ideas in a previously unexplored fashion, creating a fascinating juxtaposition between the socio-cultural documentation of many historical works and the more abstract, modern and personal themes often dealt with in tapestries today. The book includes works from notable modern artists such as Annika Ekdahl, Chuck Close, Fred Tomaselli, Grayson Perry, Francesca Lowe, Jaime Gili, Henry Moore, KB Kitaj and Kara Walker. Tapestry: A Woven Narrative also discusses the practical aspects of tapestry production, taking in both historical methods and those employed by the few specialist tapestry houses flourishing in the world.




Woven Gold


Book Description

Meticulously woven by hand with wool, silk, and gilt-metal thread, the tapestry collection of the Sun King, Louis XIV of France, represents the highest achievements of the art form. Intended to enhance the king’s reputation by visualizing his manifest glory and to promote the kingdom’s nascent mercantile economy, the royal collection of tapestries included antique and contemporary sets that followed the designs of the greatest artists of the Renaissance and Baroque periods, including Raphael, Giulio Romano, Rubens, Vouet, and Le Brun. Ranging in date from about 1540 to 1715 and coming from weaving workshops across northern Europe, these remarkable works portray scenes from the bible, history, and mythology. As treasured textiles, the works were traditionally displayed in the royal palaces when the court was in residence and in public on special occasions and feast days. They are still little known, even in France, as they are mostly reserved for the decoration of elite state residences and ministerial offices. This catalogue accompanies an exhibition of fourteen marvelous examples of the former royal collection that will be displayed exclusively at the J. Paul Getty Museum at the Getty Center from December 15, 2015, to May 1, 2016. Lavishly illustrated, the volume presents for the first time in English the latest scholarship of the foremost authorities working in the field.




The Erotic Cloth


Book Description

Through their metaphorical and material qualities, textiles can be seductive, exciting, intimate and, at times, shocking and disquieting. This book is the first critical examination of the erotically charged relationship between the surface of the skin and the touch of cloth, exploring the ways in which textiles can seduce, conceal and reveal through their interactions with the body. From the beautiful cloth which is quietly suggestive, to bold expressions of deviant sexuality, cloth is a message carrier for both desiring and being desired. The drape, fold, touch and feel, the sound and look of cloth in motion, allow for the exploration of identity as a sensual, gendered or political experience. The book features contributions on the sensory rustle and drape of silk taffeta and the secret pleasures of embroidery, on fetishistic punk street-style and homoerotic intimacy in men's shirts on screen, and a new perspective on the role of cloth and skin in the classic film Blade Runner. In doing so, it interrogates experiences of cloth within social, historical, psychological and cultural contexts. Divided into four sections on representation, design, otherness and performance, The Erotic Cloth showcases a variety of debates that are at the heart of contemporary textile research, drawing on the fields of art, design, film, performance, culture and politics. Playful, provocative and beautifully illustrated with over 50 color images, it will appeal to students and scholars of textiles, fashion, gender, art and anthropology.