“What was before”: Lenore Tawney and Her Circle, 1950–1963

Authors

Rebecca McNamara, Skidmore CollegeFollow

Date of this Version

2024

Document Type

Presentation

Citation

Textile Society of America 2024 Symposium

Shifts & Strands: Rethinking the Possibilities and Potentials of Textiles, November 12-17, 2024, a virtual event

Comments

Published by the Textiles Society of America

Copyright 2024, the author. Used by permission

Abstract

Lenore Tawney (1907–2007) was a pioneer of 20th-century fiber arts, a position solidified by the pivotal 1963 Woven Forms exhibition at New York’s Museum of Contemporary Crafts. But her journey to this moment is less well-known. This presentation explores the preceding years, when Tawney decided, with great intention, to dedicate her life to art, relocated from Chicago to New York, and in her work, shifted (though not seamlessly nor all at once) from weaving functional objects like table mats—as shown at Chicago's first Good Design exhibition, in 1950—to colorful, figurative, dense wall tapestries to the abstract, open-weave sculptural hangings in black and natural colors for which she is now renowned. She also solidified the motifs—such as birds, water, eggs, circles—that would come to define her work across media.

Tawney’s art derived from an indefinable, and sometimes mythologized, inner spirit, but she was not an island. This presentation will further explore the people and institutions who influenced or bolstered Tawney’s career in this period, including America House in New York; Elizabeth Gordon and House Beautiful magazine; Martta Taipale, whose six-week workshop at Penland School of Handicrafts in 1954 Tawney credited with catalyzing her dedication to art; weaver Lili Blumenau, with whom Tawney studied Peruvian techniques; and Chicago gallerist Marna Johnson, whose name has not yet been written into historical records.

In addition to exhibition and artwork photographs, the presentation will feature never-before published archival images, including stills from an unfinished film by Maryette Charlton.