With her psychedelic clothing and bright red wig, Yayoi Kusama is an inimitable icon of the 20th century. Like many before her, including Frida Kahlo, Georgia O’Keeffe and Andy Warhol, Kusama has recognised the importance of brandishing an unforgettable public image, one that is innately bound with her life and art. Kusama’s public image is…
Category Archives: TEXTILES
From Viking Age clothing to Catholic vestments and prestigious royal gowns, European embroidery has a rich history that is closely intertwined with our cultural past. Europe was also a site for embroidery innovation; techniques that were discovered here continue to live on today in the clothes we wear and the ways we decorate our homes….
Wassily Kandinsky lived and breathed colour, letting it infiltrate his entire life. His impassioned, ferocious paintings are a testament to this, with their noisy, clanging clashes of dazzling brilliance that exude a spirit of endless optimism and hope. He was a great leader in the 20th century European avant-garde, taking art into the great and…
The art of adorning clothing with embroidery has been an Indian tradition for more than 5,000 years. Its history is deeply embedded into the history of Indian culture, religion and daily life, and it is a tradition that continues to this day. Throughout Indian history embroidery has been there, adorning the homes of ordinary people…
Cubist painter Georges Braque celebrated the ambient power of warm, naturalistic colours throughout his career, bringing rich and appealing earthy tones like LODEN GREEN into many of his most famous paintings. A pioneering French Cubist alongside Pablo Picasso, Braque’s limited hues initially gave him room to focus on wildly experimental designs without letting bright colours…
Post-war British artist Patrick Heron was a colourist at heart, creating noisy, expressive paintings that seem to fizz and pop with life. He often brought sombre shades of purple, indigo and blue into his abstract paintings, letting it meander in velvety ribbons across white backgrounds, or seep into endless pools of darkness. BLUE ICE’s cool…
Cool, icy greys like VAPOR BLUE are a mainstay in Wilhelmina Barns-Graham’s art, capturing the freezing, oceanic air of her native Cornwall. A leading member of the St Ives artists group in Cornwall, England, Barns-Graham was entranced by the steely silver of the ocean and its surrounding rocks. She painted, drew, and printed abstract visions…
The journey of embroidery in the United States is long and complex, with many twists and turns along the way. It begins with the ancient cultures of Native America, and travels through the 17th century New World, flourishing in the American colonies and remaining a popular pastime in the later cities that emerged. Because of…
French artist Raoul Dufy is one of the most celebrated artists of the 20th century, known for his brilliantly colourful, spirited artworks that convey a world of eternal optimism. Although he is primarily remembered today as a painter, there is another, less publicised side to Dufy – that of a pioneering textile designer. He produced…
American painter Roland Petersen makes paintings that are streaked with angular slabs of sunlight, slotted together with the appealing playfulness of a tangram puzzle. A leading member of the Bay Area Figurative School in 1960s San Francisco, Petersen was one of a generation who rejected Abstract Expressionism for a return to figuration, combining all the…
Russia, as we now know it, has a long and complex history of embroidery, one going back many hundreds of years. From the gold thread vestments of medieval clergy to the colourful and intricately illustrated clothing of indigenous cultures, Russian embroidery has much to tell us about the nation through the centuries. Far more than…
ROSE SMOKE’s sweet, tart pink coloured Robert Delaunay’s kaleidoscopic art, filling it with the bright freshness of summer. Delaunay was a leading figure in the early 20th century School of Paris, and his art encapsulated the joyful anticipation of the era, a time when rising industrial change promised a life of danger, thrill and adventure….
Contemporary artist Kehinde Wiley makes art that celebrates life, with ridiculously exuberant characters, joyful colours and indulgent patterns that are impossible to ignore. Taking his cue from the great history painters of the past, Wiley explores the emotive potential of fabric, allowing it to wrap around his heroic characters and lend them masterful qualities of…
Expressionist artist Chaim Soutine made meaty, muscular paintings loaded with great slabs and strokes of paint; they twist, curl and contort across his canvases in an endless state of flux. Like many artists of the early 20th century Soutine painted a heightened, exaggerated version of the real world, one lit up by iridescent colours and…
The roots of embroidery are often traced back to ancient China. It was the Chinese who first began cultivating and producing silk, a magical substance that could be woven into the softest fabrics, or spun into threads as soft and fine as human hair. Some of the very first embroideries were also produced in China…
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