Year: 2018
Type: article
Abstract: In scattered workshops in Northern Europe, experimental hand-weaving made an important contribution to artistic and industrial modernism in the first part of the 20 th century.The story of the weaver Anni Albers reminds us of the complexities and contradictions of this "lost" 20 th century modernism, which was almost entirely led by women.Aside from the Bauhaus in Germany where Albers studied alongside great figures like Gunta Stölzl, Otti Berger, Margaret Leischner, and Benita Otte, there were interesting weavers in Scandinavia like the Finnish Greta Skogster and the Swedish Elsa Gulberg.In Britain there were the experimental weavers, spinners and dyers Ethel Mairet and Elizabeth Peacock, while the Swiss designer Marianne Straub influenced both hand and industrial weaving in Britain.In 1930s North America, Loja Saarinen and Marianne Strengell brought Swedish and Finnish modernist standards to weaving as teachers at Cranbrook while in France there were the remarkable experimental dress textiles, both woven and knitted, designed by the firm Rodier and produced in short runs on handlooms in small villages in Picardy.The Bauhaus weavers were, therefore, part of a Europe-wide movement using handlooms to explore weave structures in order to create discrete works of art but, also, more importantly, to transform industrial weaving.
Source: Critique d’art
Author: Tanya Harrod
Language: French
Topic: Crafts, Textile, and Design
Subfield: Museology
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: bronze
OpenAlex ID: W4252849345