The thousands of textiles currently housed at the Brooklyn Museum are prime examples of the vast glo

The thousands of textiles currently housed at the Brooklyn Museum are prime examples of the vast global history of textile making and sewing traditions in New York City. In participation with New York Textile Month, we will be showcasing one textile per day for the month of September.  While difficult to narrow it down to only thirty textiles, we think these works are best at weaving narratives about topics such as innovations in the textile industry, craft and the beauty of the handmade, textiles from legendary designers like Frank Lloyd Wright and Anni Albers, as well as textiles with a sense of humor. Did you know that PeeWee’s Playhouse had a line of textiles made? Follow along this month to discover this rich textile collection, one swatch at a time. The late eighteenth century was a time of great social and economic change in the West. The American Revolution set in motion the development of democracy and the concomitant Industrial Revolution changed forever how people lived and the products that were available in the new consumer society. This bed cover combines these two important stories. Iconographically this textile celebrates two of the most important heroes of our revolution: George Washington and Benjamin Franklin. Although we live in an age of instant celebrity, it is difficult for us to appreciate the extent of the aura and fame that surrounded these two men whose images and accomplishments were known so widely. The technique of decoration of this textile was no less revolutionary. Inspired by chintzes imported from India, textile makers in Europe began to decorate machine made textiles with imagery produced by the copperplate transfer technique. This technique was perfected in Ireland about 1752, exported to England, and then to France where Christophe Oberkamp established a factory at Jouy-en-Josas, near Paris, in 1760. By 1790, the invention of copperplate roller printing allowed textile manufacturers to produce greater quantities of printed textile faster and at lower cost. The use of narrative textiles for upholstery and wall treatments was a hallmark of interior decoration of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.Posted by Barry R. Harwood, Lark Morgenstern, and Caitlin Crews -- source link

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