American Yardage

Cheney Brothers - Manchester, Conn.
Meteor Shower
1913
roller-printed silk
National Museum of American History, Washington DC

A.H. Straus & Co. - New York
Peruvian
1917
discharge-printed silk
National Museum of American History, Washington DC

A.H. Straus & Co. - New York
Saracenic
1917
discharge-printed silk
National Museum of American History, Washington DC

Cheney Brothers - Manchester, Conn.
Zantine
1917
roller-printed silk
National Museum of American History, Washington DC

Cheney Brothers - Manchester, Conn.
Sweetbriar
1917
roller-printed silk
National Museum of American History, Washington DC

Duplan Silk Corp. - New York
Floral Clusters
1921
silk-satin crepe
National Museum of American History, Washington DC

 Martha Ryther for H.R. Mallinson & Co. - New York
Development of the Loom
1923
block-printed silk
National Museum of American History, Washington DC

Cheney Brothers - Manchester, Conn.
Mysore
1925
roller-printed silk
National Museum of American History, Washington DC

H.R. Mallinson & Co. - New York
Crater Lake, Oregon
1927
roller-printed silk
National Museum of American History, Washington DC

H.R. Mallinson & Co. - New York
Flower Market of the Madeleine
1928
roller-printed silk
National Museum of American History, Washington DC

H.R. Mallinson & Co. - New York
Betsy Ross / Liberty Bell
1929
roller-printed silk crepe
National Museum of American History, Washington DC

Joe Martin for Schumacher & Co. - New York
Bird Zoo
ca. 1949
screenprinted cotton
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Cheney Brothers - Manchester, Conn.
Antique Satin
1951
silk satin
National Museum of American History, Washington DC

Alexander Girard for Herman Miller
Ribbons
1957
screenprinted linen furnishing fabric
Art Institute of Chicago

David Jamison
Park
(repeat image of Park Avenue, New York)
1990
printed polyester and viscose
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Wallace Sewell for Designtex - New York
Clerkenwell
2014
wool
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Wallace Sewell for Designtex - New York
Myddleton
2014
wool
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

From far, from eve and morning

    And yon twelve-winded sky,

The stuff of life to knit me

    Blew hither: here am I.

Now– for a breath I tarry

    Nor yet disperse apart  –

Take my hand quick and tell me,

    What have you in your heart.

Speak now, and I will answer,

    How shall I help you, say;

Ere to the wind's twelve quarters

    I take my endless way.

– A.E. Housman (1896)

Pieces

Anonymous Needleworker
Darning Sampler
1816
silk on linen
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Anonymous Needleworker
Darning Sampler
1825
silk on cotton
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Cheney Brothers (Manchester, Conn.)
Textile Sample
1913
border-printed, satin-striped silk marquisette
National Museum of American History, Washington DC

Wiener Werkstätte
Textile Sample
before 1932
block-printed silk
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Wiener Werkstätte
Textile Sample
before 1932
block-printed silk
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Wiener Werkstätte
Handkerchief
ca. 1930
block-printed silk
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Pierre Mourgue for Stehli Silk Corp. (New York)
Parachutes
ca. 1926-28
screenprinted silk
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Anonymous French Maker
Alençon Needle-Lace Border
17th century
linen
National Museum of American History, Washington DC

Anonymous French Maker
Argentella Needle-Lace Border
ca. 1720
linen
National Museum of American History, Washington DC

Sue Thatcher Palmer
for Stead, McAlpin & Co. (Carlisle, Cumbria)
Chrome City
1970
screenprinted cotton
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Eddie Squires for Warner Fabrics, London
Gemstones
1971
screenprinted cotton
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Anonymous Chinese Makers
Textile Sample
ca. 1900
printed silk-satin
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Anonymous Chinese Makers
Fragment with Birds and Flowers
19th century
silk embroidery on silk
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Robert Paige
Scarf
ca. 1980
resist-dyed and hand-painted silk
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Ursula Luthi for Création Baumann (Langenthal, Switzerland)
Ortis
1989
screenprinted cotton
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Anonymous Bulgarian Makers
Leaf from Sample Book
c1950-60-
machine-printed silk, mounted on paper
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Patricia Urquiola for Kvadrat (Ebeltoft, Denmark)
Winding
2014
polyester
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

    Though it hath been doubted if there be in the soul such imperious and super-excellent power as that it can by the vehement and earnest working of it deliver knowledge to another without bodily organs, and by only conceptions and ideas produce real effects, yet it hath been ever and of all held as infallible and most certain that it often (either by outward inspiration or some secret motion in itself) is augur of its own misfortunes, and hath shadows of approaching dangers presented unto it before they fall forth.  Hence so many strange apparitions and signs, true visions, uncouth heaviness and causeless languishings: of which to seek a reason, unless from the sparkling of God in the soul or from the God-like sparkles of the soul, were to make reason unreasonable by reasoning of things transcending her reach.  

    Having, when I had given myself to rest in the quiet solitariness of the night, found often my imagination troubled with a confused fear or sorrow or horror, which interrupting sleep did astonish my senses and rouse me all appalled and transported in a sudden agony and amazedness; of such an unaccustomed perturbation, not knowing nor being able to dive into any apparent cause, carried away with the stream of my (then doubting) thoughts, I began to ascribe it to that secret foreknowledge and presaging power of the prophetic mind, and to interpret such an agony to be to the spirit as a sudden faintness and universal weariness useth to be to the body, a sign of following sickness; or, as winter lightnings, earthquakes and monsters prove to commonwealths and great cities, harbingers of wretched events and emblems of their hidden destinies. 

– William Drummond of Hawthornden, from A Cypress Grove (London: Hawthornden Press, 1919, reprinting the original edition of 1623)

Affinities

Atelier Van Lieshout
Operation
2007
polyester
Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam

Atelier Van Lieshout
The Heart
2002
screenprint
Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam

Eugène Atget
Passage Saint-Pierre, Paris
ca. 1900
albumen silver print
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra

Eugène Atget
Porte, rue de l'Orangerie, Versailles
ca. 1910
albumen silver print
Los Angeles County Museum of Art 

Bartolomeo Veneto
Portrait of a Man
before 1531
oil on panel
Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge

Bartolomeo Veneto
Portrait of a Woman
1530
oil on panel
Timken Museum of Art, San Diego

Max Beckmann
Corner of the Studio
1950
oil on canvas
Pinakothek der Moderne, Munich

Max Beckmann
Still Life with Studio Window
1931
oil on canvas
Pinakothek der Moderne, Munich

Jacques Blanchard
Mars and the Vestal Virgin
ca. 1637-38
oil on canvas
Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney

Jacques Blanchard
Semele and Jupiter
ca. 1632
oil on canvas
Dallas Museum of Art

Augustus John
Canadian Soldier
1918
oil on canvas
Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney

Augustus John
Reverie (Dorelia in Cornwall)
ca. 1914
oil on panel
Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney

Oskar Kokoschka
Double Portrait of Hans Mardersteig and Carl Georg Heise
1919
oil on canvas
Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam

Oskar Kokoschka
Portrait of Frau Reuther
ca. 1921
oil on canvas
Norton Simon Museum, Pasadena, California

Gotthardt Kuehl
Blue Room
ca. 1900
oil on panel
Alte Nationalgalerie,
Staatliche Museen zu Berlin

Gotthardt Kuehl
In the Orphanage
ca. 1890
oil on panel
Kunsthalle Bremen

from Orfeo

     "J'ai perdu mon Eurydice . . ."

I have lost my Eurydice,
I have lost my lover,
and suddenly I am speaking French
and it seems to me I have never been in better voice;
it seems these songs
are songs of a high order.

And it seems one is somehow expected to apologize
for being an artist,
as though it were not entirely human to notice these fine points.

– Louise Glück (1999)