Connoissance
<p>An innovator in weaving, Tawney elevated the textile medium to the status of fine art. Born in Ohio, the artist moved to Chicago in 1927, working during the day as a proofreader for a legal publisher and taking evening classes at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. This collage utilizes Egyptian silhouettes and two texts written in different styles of script, with the paper appearing interwoven like papyrus. Tawney often chose texts written in languages that she could not speak, and when the foreign words of her works were translated, she recalled, “they would mean just what I had intended.”</p>
Catalogue
- Year
- 1967
- Dimensions
- 17.1 × 20 cm (6 3/4 × 7 7/8 in.)
- Collection
- Art Institute of Chicago
- Artist
- Lenore Tawney
Artist
Drawing
Lenore Tawney was an American weaver and sculptor who pioneered the use of linen and other fibers as primary sculptural materials rather than decorative textiles. Beginning in the 1950s, she created monumental woven forms that incorporated open spaces and three-dimensional structures, elevating fiber work to fine art status during the postwar period. Her practice moved between wall-based weavings and free-standing sculptural installations, often employing natural materials and industrial techniques. Tawney's innovations established fiber as a legitimate medium for contemporary art discourse.
Full artist profile →More
More by Lenore Tawney
Portrait Collage Postcard
1997 · Pen and black ink and watercolor and feather collage
Envelope and Collage
1990 · Pen and black ink and collage
The Bride Has Entered
1982 · Cotton, plain weave; painted with pigment and gold leaf; attached linen threads in grid pattern
Untitled (#34)
1977 · Wooden box, covered with manuscript pages; feathers
Waters Above the Firmament
1976 · Linen, warp-faced weft-ribbed plain weave with discontinuous wefts; 18th/19th century manuscript pages cut into strips, attached, and painted with Liquitex acrylic paint; braided, knotted, and cut warp fringe
Untitled (#32)
1976 · Cigar box, covered with manuscript pages; perforated and strung with linen threads; nutshells
Record
Verified by WattsOS- Artist
- Lenore Tawney
- Year
- 1967
- Dimensions
- 17.1 × 20 cm (6 3/4 × 7 7/8 in.)
- Watts ID
- WW-1967-043801
Source
- Collection
- Art Institute of Chicago
- Source
- aic
- Reference
- View at source
- Status
- verified
Explore
More Pen and black ink, over collage of letterpress in black ink on tan wove papers, torn, and color lithographs on off-white wove paper, cut, and pasted onto tan laid paper book page with letterpress, laid down on two cream wove paper book pages with letterpress in black works →All works by Lenore Tawney →