Textile art, or as Anni Albers said, “the poetry of materials,” has had many lives. In the 40s, we loved fabric. 24 foot stage curtains. Men’s trousers up to their stomachs. Women dripping in silk, satin, taffeta. “Some styles used up to fifteen yards of fabric,” writes Karina Reddy of the 40s, a fashion writer who manages the Fashion History Timeline on the Fashion Institute’s web site. During a time...
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Textile art, or as Anni Albers said, “the poetry of materials,” has had many lives.
In the 40s, we loved fabric. 24 foot stage curtains. Men’s trousers up to their stomachs. Women dripping in silk, satin, taffeta.
“Some styles used up to fifteen yards of fabric,” writes Karina Reddy of the 40s, a fashion writer who manages the Fashion History Timeline on the Fashion Institute’s web site.
During a time of rationing, the surplus of fabric sparked civil unrest in Los Angeles in June 1943. Alice Gregory of Smithsonian Magazine wrote, “For over a week, white U.S. soldiers and sailors traversed Los Angeles beating up allegedly ‘unpatriotic’ Mexican-American men, identifiable by their conspicuously voluminous attire.”
The 60s saw textiles discussed as “art” in itself more, pioneered by women like Annie Albers and Sheila Hicks who moved beyond traditional notions during a time of significant experimentation across various art forms.
“Along with the miniskirt came a craze for the playful, innovative use of new materials and a focus on scientific progress,” writes Karina.
“Newly developed materials … acrylics, polyesters, and shiny PVC were used in women’s clothing… Pierre Cardin and André Courrèges debuted space-inspired designs in shades of white and silver.”
In 1970, fifty years ago, Janice Lourie started a revolution in textile manufacturing with IBM’s first software patent. The program, known as the Textile Graphics System, made the automated computer-driven loom possible, allowing designers to produce a weave or pattern in minutes that would take days or weeks on graph paper—a milestone for computer-aided design, or CAD.
Image from the press release of IBM and detail from page 5 (of 80) of US Patent 3,529,298, 1970.
Recent ExhibitsOn Fabric
“Anni Albers: In Thread and On Paper’ at the Blanton Museum of Art in Austin, Texas, is on display until June 30th.
Anni Albers was a pioneering textile artist who transformed the art of weaving. Her work was characterized by a focus on restraint, simplicity, and an underlying math. Math that made a sense of quiet beauty and serenity.
Albers started her artistic journey at the Bauhaus, where she studied painting but eventually gravitated to fabric.
Dorothy Liebes
“A Dark, a light, a bright: The Designs of Dorothy Liebes” at Cooper Hewitt ended February 4, 2024.
Dorothy Liebes (1897-1972) was a pioneering American designer and weaver who had a significant impact on 20th-century interior design, fashion, and industrial design.
A recent exhibit on the beautiful second floor of the Cooper Hewitt on E 91st St showcased her start as a California handweaver to a key figure in the popularization of American modernist design across interiors, transportation, industrial design, fashion, and film.
iPhone photo from A Dark, a light, a bright: The Designs of Dorothy Liebes at Cooper Hewitt.
Exhibits On Fabric Happening Now In New York
Embrace the Past: Mourning, Memory and Lace Part of Acquired! Shaping the National Design Collection Cooper Hewitt, 2 E 91st St, 2nd Floor Ends September 2, 2024
Weaving Abstraction in Ancient and Modern Art. Metropolitan Museum of Art, 5th Avenue Ends June 16, 2024
By Way Of: Material and Motion in the Guggenheim Collection Guggenheim, 5th Avenue Ends January 12, 2025
Making Their Mark Shah Garg, W 22nd St Ends March 23, 2024
Lady Writing a Letter... by Johannes Vermeer (detail)
As of today, there's ten authenticated Johannes Vermeer paintings on public view in New York, the most of anywhere outside of the Netherlands. All of... Text by Marguerite de Ponty. Read More
Jeannie Four Roses (detail) Oil on linen 45 x 30 in. by Jamie Adams
UPTOWN—The show blends historic Surrealist masters—Carrington, Fini, Tanguy, De Chirico—with seventeen contemporary artists. But it doesn’t attempt the impossible comparison. As Kuspit points out, the... Text by dannik. Read More
TRIBECA—British artist Louise Giovanelli is currently presenting a new body of work at Grimm 54 in New York. The exhibition, titled Still Moving, runs through... Text by Dalia Morgan. Read More
In 2022, the city of Rome hosted a comprehensive exhibition dedicated to Francesco Messina at Villa Torlonia. Titled Francesco Messina. Novecento Contemporaneo, the show brought... Text by dannik. Read More
Slip House, the brand new gallery opened at the base of a 19th-century, three-story former carriage house at 246 East 5th Street.
EAST VILLAGE—Every two decades is a response to the previous two. After decades of irony, the purposeful ugliness of the 80s and 90s (“Anything that’s... Text by Cici Thompson. Read More
Richard Hawkins. New Paintings at Greene Naftali in New York
NEW YORK—Between fairs and the official listings and the soft-launches in someone’s cousin’s Chinatown loft, May represents an upward swing. Skip the overload and go... Text by Marguerite de Ponty. Read More
MILAN—Italy’s long affection for bamboo can be glimpsed beyond fashion and design. Franco Maria Ricci’s Labirinto della Masone, the sprawling bamboo maze outside Parma, stands... Text by Cici Thompson. Read More
Pol Taburet, Desire and Stones (detail), 2025. Acrylics, alcohol-based paint, and oil pastel on canvas, 250 × 190 cm. Courtesy of the artist and Mendes Wood DM. Photo: Romain Darnaud.
MADRID—French-Guadeloupean artist Pol Taburet makes his Spanish debut in Oh, If Only I Could Listen, a site-specific exhibition staged inside Madrid’s historic Pabellón de los... Text by Edward Bellow. Read More
Photograph by Erich Höhne. Courtesy of Deutsche Fotothek.
The Geometry of Motion and Zadie Smith. Wassily Kandinsky, a painter of color and form, once envisioned a future where dance would shed its ornamental... Text by Marguerite de Ponty. Read More
Located in the stunning, spaceship-like expo of Messeplatz, Art Basel faces Design Miami, another expo for the rich and curious, displaying furniture and aesthetic products... Text by Madina Tulakova. Read More
VENICE—The Biennale, Stranieri ovunque, is a mirror this year. "You judge, you gossip, you wash it all down with Prosecco. Have you seen the Uzbekistan... Text by Simona Alberi. Read More
Franco Maria Ricci in 1984, at the launch of FMR U.S.A. at the New York Public Library.
Caverns were probably the first labyrinthine structures human beings came into contact with, in a distant past. And I, too, rummaged through my own past,... Text by fmr. Read More
