Exhibitions

Exhibitions

'Beyond Peacocks and Paisleys: Handcrafted Textiles of India and its Neighbors,' was the title of an exhibition at the Goldstein Museum of Design, University of Minnesota, between 9 June - 25 September 2011.

From 20 March to 30 April 2015, there was an exhibition called 'Hidden Within', initiated by Samantha Roddick (1971) at the Michael Hoppen Gallery, London. The exhibition consisted of a series of erotic photographs of women in various poses, which were presented against a backdrop of embroidered velvet and framed using brass mounts.

In 2015-2016, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York organised an exhibition called 'American and European Embroidered Samplers, 1600-1900'. The exhibition showed a selection of some thirty examples from the total of some eight hundred samplers housed in the Museum.

'Art, Honour, and Ridicule: Asafo Flags from Southern Ghana' was the title of an exhibition in the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto that was opened on 3rd September 2016. It showed flags that served as insignia for the numerous military Asafo companies of the Fante states along the coast of Ghana.

Atelier Stadelmaier: Hemelse Mode rond het Altaar ('Atelier Stadelmaier: Heavenly Fashion around the Altar') was an exhibition about the work of the Atelier Stadelmaier, Nijmegen (the Netherlands) at the Museum Catharijneconvent, Utrecht (the Netherlands), between 10 April and 16 August 2015.

"Bearing Witness: Embroidery as history in post-apartheid South Africa," was an exhibition held at the Fowler Museum, University of California, Los Angeles (USA), between 7th September – 7th December 2014. The exhibition was organised by Gemma Rodrigues, Curator of African Arts, Fowler Museum.

'Beyond the Chador: Dress from the mountains and deserts of Iran' was the name of an exhibition mounted by the Textile Research Centre in Leiden, from 23 January until 29 August 2013. Visitors at the exhibition were struck by the sheer diversity, the bright colours of the garments and multitude of shapes, which constitute such a marked contrast with the dominant perception of Iranian clothing as being dull and uniform.

'Colour & Light: Embroidery from India and Pakistan', was the title of an exhibition set up in 2007 by the Textile Museum of Canada. The curator of the exhibition was Dale Carolyn Gluckman, an American textile historian.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York mounted an exhibition in 2015 that focussed on the highly decorative upper class men's wear in France in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. It showed long lengths of cloth woven for a man's outfit, but never cut and sewn together. The exhibition included samples of embroidery for men's garments, worked between 1760 and 1815, mainly from France.

'Embroidery from the Arab World' was the title of an exhibition mounted by the Textile Research Centre in Leiden, between May and August 2010. This was the first time in The Netherlands that an exhibition was dedicated to the various types of embroidery from the Arab world.

The Embroidery Show was an exhibition that was held in Museum De Fundatie, Zwolle, The Netherlands, from 28 April to 18 September 2016. It showed some one thousand embroideries that were collected since 2005 at various flea markets and other places by the modern Dutch artist, Rob Scholte.

Fine and Fashionable: Lace from the Blackborne Collection was an exhibition held at the Bowes Museum (Barnard Castle, Co. Durham, England) between September 2006 and April 2007. The exhibition included over 200 items of early bobbin and needle lace that were donated to the Museum by descendents of Anthony and Arthur Blackborne, London-based dealers in lace in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

In the first half of 2018, the Textile Research Centre in Leiden, The Netherlands, set up an exhibition about printed and embroidered feedsacks.These items reflect a story of resilience, female ingenuity, thriftiness, sustainability, art and design, national awareness, as well as economic and commercial insight for nearly fifty years, from the 1920’s to the 1960’s. It is an amazing story, and one that is now barely known outside of the US.

In 2020, the Cleveland Museum of Art (CMA), in collaboration with the Seoul Museum of Craft Art, set up an exhibition with the title: Gold Needles: Embroidery Arts from Korea. The exhibition focuses on the embroidery produced in the later years of the Joseon Dynasty (1392-1910). The description below is taken from an accompanying text written by Sooa Im McCormick, associate curator of Korean Art at the CMA.

The Great Exhibition of London in 1851 was the first in a series of international exhibitions in Europe and America. These exhibitions often showed a wide range of hand and machine made decorative needlework from around the world. The 1851 exhibition took place at the Crystal Palace, in Hyde Park, London. It was presented under the name of the Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of All Nations.

In July 2017 the London-based embroidery firm of Hand & Lock organised the exhibition "250 Years of Embroidery."

Between 3 March and 18 July 2021, the Fries Museum in Leeuwarden, the Netherlands, presented a large exhibition with the title Haute Bordure. The curator was Eveline Hoisappel. Unfortunately, because of the corona pandemic the exhibition could only be seen by the public from early June.

'In Praise of God: Ecclesiastical Textiles from the Age of Maria Theresia,' was the name of an exhibition set up in the Kaiserliche Schatzkammer in Vienna, from May to September 2016. On display were eighteenth century vestments from the collection of the museum. Most of the garments were owned by Emperor Charles VI (1685–1740), his wife Elisabeth Christine (1691–1750) and their daughter, Maria Theresia (1717–1780).

From 5th September 2012 until 17th January 2013, the Textile Research Centre in Leiden organised an exhibition about footwear from all over the world. It included a number of delicate lotus shoes from China (from 5 to 12 cm in length for an adult woman). They were part of a growing collection of lotus shoes that the TRC has been building up since 2007. 

The exhibition 'Opus Anglicanum: Masterpieces of English Medieval Embroidery' opened on 1 October 2016 in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London. The exhibition focuses on one of the most famous medieval (export) products of England, namely the opus anglicanum. The exhibition of these beautifully embroidered garments is supported by the embroidery firm of Hand & Lock.

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