CDAW 2005 Participant
American Folk Art Museum

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White on White (and a little gray)
March 28 - September 17, 2006

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Artist unidentified Maine, 1830–1840 Cotton with clipped cotton roving embroidery 89 1/2 x 86 1/4 Photo: Gavin Ashworth American Folk Art Museum, gift of Jay Johnson, 1991.6.2

Stacy C. Hollander, curator

White on White (and a little gray) highlights the vernacular American participation in the vogue for neoclassicism. The pure light of whitework textiles was the perfect emblem of rationalism in the Federal era. The American Folk Art Museum holds a breathtaking collection of these textiles executed in a variety of techniques that have never been shown together. Ten whiteworks are on view, from the museum’s earliest example, dated 1796, to mid-nineteenth century textiles. These will be augmented by a selection of Albany printworks, elaborate mourning needleworks stitched in shades of black on white silk to emulate line engravings and newsprint, and marble-dust drawings intended to evoke the paintings discovered on marble walls in ancient Greek villas.

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American Folk Art Museum
45 West 53rd Street
New York, NY
email: info@folkartmuseum.org
web: www.folkartmuseum.org