Saint Louis Art Museum to show 'A Stitch in Time'

Friday, 04 January 2008 00:07

Saint Louis, MO - The Saint Louis Art Museum announces the March 21 opening of A Stitch in Time: Images of Needleworking, 1850–1920, an exhibition of eight works on paper from the Museum’s collection that illustrate women engaged in various facets of needlework, such as sewing, embroidering and carding. The exhibition complements the featured exhibition Quilts in a Material World: Selections from the Winterthur Collection, on view March 2–May 26 in the Museum’s Main Exhibition Galleries.
 
Featuring works by such artists as Childe Hassam and Jean François Millet, this exhibition demonstrates a pronounced interest in the production of handmade crafts during the mid-19th century’s rise of industrial manufacturing in Europe and America. Artists who depicted needleworking as an occupation for the working classes portrayed the craft with reverence and quiet dignity.
 
By the late 19th century, needleworking was portrayed nostalgically as a rustic form of labor that was fast disappearing, but it was also promoted as a craft pastime for the middle and upper classes. Women were encouraged to give direction to their artistic talents, and the domestic interiors that they occupied were often represented as spaces of peacefulness and harmony. Many artists used their wives and immediate family members as models for their artwork, showing the women intently absorbed in their activities.
 
Curated by Eric Lutz, assistant curator of prints, drawings and photographs, A Stitch in Time: Images of Needleworking, 1850–1920  will be on view in Gallery through June 8, 2008.
 
The Saint Louis Art Museum is one of the nation’s leading comprehensive art museums with collections that include works of art of exceptional quality from virtually every culture and time period. Areas of notable depth include Oceanic art, pre-Columbian art, ancient Chinese bronzes, and European and American art of the late 19th and 20th centuries, with particular strength in 20th-century German art. The Art Museum offers a full range of exhibitions and educational programming generated independently and in collaboration with local, national and international partners.  Admission to the Saint Louis Art Museum is free to all every day; featured exhibition admission is free on Fridays. For more information about the Saint Louis Art Museum, call 314.721.0072 or visit www.slam.org .