Lenore Tawney:

• Born in Ohio in 1907. Was introduced to the tenets of Bauhaus when she attended the Chicago Institute of Design in 1927 (founded by Moholy-Negy, a Hungarian painter advocating the integration of technology into the fine arts). While she was very influenced by teachers of Bauhaus, she never considered herself a “Bauhaus artist.”

• Moved to New York in 1957, where she became involved with a group of artists, mostly involved with the modernist and minimalist school. Lived there until her death when she was 100.

• Exhibited at the Met, Smithsonian, Art Institue of Chicago, American Craft Museum.

• Gropius was greatly affected by the horrors of WWI and wanted to create a school where industrial methods were used not used for destructive wars but for the betterment of social conditions.

• Tawney used the traditional upright and pedal powered loom to make untraditional pieces – rather than make tight woven tapestries, she combined sculpture and weaving, to create textile pieces that subverted the idea of craft and folk art.

• At a time when “arts” (fine) and “crafts” were considered two different disciplines with different sets of cultural references (European art history vs. the more marginalized craft), she united them using open warp and tapestry weaves (craft skills) to create monumental sculptures.

• She was massively influential in the field of textile arts, helping to shape and create the fiber arts known in American art institutions

• Interesting to note, however, she is not very well known outside of the field of textile arts, never took a teaching positions like her predecessors in Bauhaus, even though she was offered. She was also very private, despite her influence, there’s not much biographical information to be found about her.

• Apart from her large-scale and delicate fiber sculptures, she also created hundreds of delicate postcards, embellished with feathers, woven paper, shells, and found objects. Never considered these pieces finished until they went through the mail, and refused to put them inside envelopes.

o The postcards display elements of her other works – delicate weaves, fine lines, linear visual juxtaposed with round shapes.

o Were displayed in conjunction with her sculptures.

State of Textile Art in NYC Art Scene:

• How I became interested in this project: I’ve always had an interest in textile arts, and was looking for show’s to see in NYC. All I could find was at the Folk Art Museum, and I was immediately turned off by the tone of the American quilting exhibit – finding it very trope-y and designed for tourists.

o Since then, I was seeking more contemporary textile art, and while I found some pieces in larger group exhibitions, I never found a solo show.

o So I hypothetically, “curated” a group show, by ? different textile artists that I saw as embodying the future of contemporary textile art.

• Curatorial choices and methods:

Museum Publications:

• I studied a series of different exhibition catalogs, looking at both design and form

• Self-taught (with help from Jon Hanford) the use of Indesign for art publications

• Have an interest in publications, especially publication design for books, so wanted to learn how to do this.