Category Archives: TEXTILES IN ART

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…

20th century Russian pioneer Natalia Goncharova had an astonishingly varied and prolific career, spanning painting, printmaking, costume, set design and more. Pulling together all these diverse ideas was a desire to celebrate her Russian heritage, and its place in an increasingly modern society. Russian fabrics were among her most favourite and cherished objects, particularly those…

Pattern, in all its multicoloured, decorative glory, is at the heart of David Hockney’s art. It was there in his art as a young, keen student in 1950s London, and it’s still alive and well in the art he makes today (only Hockney could reimagine the Yorkshire landscape as a series of eye-wateringly bright patchworks)….

Henri Matisse was an avid, obsessive collector, amassing a huge archive of incredible objects throughout his lifetime that clattered noisily against one another in his home studio. The most cherished of these possessions were Matisse’s impressively vast collection of textiles which he gathered from all over the world, including French tapestries, Persian rugs and African…

For Mexican artist Frida Kahlo fabric was an incredibly powerful form of self-expression, one that made her an inimitable icon of the 20th century. She adored the indigenous fabrics of Mexico, with their lively, exuberant prints and intricate areas of ruffling and embroidery, drenching her body in layers and layers of traditional textiles. More than…

Bold, brilliant fabric was a lifeline for French Intimiste painter Edouard Vuillard, defining the aesthetic and conceptual meaning of his art. Vuillard’s mother and sister were both dress and corset makers and he grew up surrounded by a cacophony of printed textiles, all scattered haphazardly across their 19th century Parisian apartment. This environment shaped the…

Austrian Art Nouveau painter Gustav Klimt is world-renowned for his sinuously flowing fabrics that adorned women and intertwined lovers in richly ornate blankets and gowns. But perhaps less well-known is the love affair he had with fashion designer Emilie Floge, and the impact their creative interchange had on the shape of his art. Floge’s loose,…

Dutch master Johannes Vermeer was fascinated by fabric, and it informed the nature of his art on multiple levels. This significant connection to fabric began early in Vermeer’s childhood, through family connections to textiles, and it stayed with him for life. He spent his entire career exploring the way its draped, shimmering surface could add…

Fabric has played a vitally significant role in the lives of countless artists, acting as a source of inspiration, comfort and self-expression. In this new series, we will look at the world’s finest artists who built an intimate relationship with fabric – one brought about by family history, travel or personal interest – that would…