Marjory Hinemoa Mills
Marjory Mills was one of New Zealand’s leading embroiderers, a talented artist and a successful businesswoman.
Category Archives: Textiles
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Ilse Amalie von Randow
Ilse von Randow would become a central figure in the development of modernist craft weaving in New Zealand. Her hand-woven textiles were quickly taken up by the local avant-garde and in 1952 she was awarded the Esmonde Kohn Prize for excellence in the applied arts by the Auckland Society of Arts.
Sophie Taeuber-Arp
Taeuber-Arp is not as well-known as other artists in her circle, despite her deep involvement with the burgeoning European avant-garde and the presence of her works in museum collections across the world. However, this reputation is changing, as evidenced by the 1981 retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art in New York that subsequently traveled to Chicago, Houston, and Montreal. Her work is now generally accepted as part of the story of modernism and Dada, and has drawn increasing attention from scholars and academics. Her work was influential to the growth of Feminist Art of the 1960’s, who viewed her as a trailblazer.
Hariata Whakatau Pitini-Morera
Hāriata Whakatau Pītini-Morēra was the most important leader of Ngāti Kurī, a founding hapū of Ngāi Tahu in the South Island.
Anni Albers
Albers made her mark on the Bauhaus, the weaving art form, and the conception of “women’s” crafts with her innovations. Beyond the integration of abstract modernism into textile weavings, Albers also introduced new technologies to the weaving workshop.
Eva Hesse
Though Hesse’s career spanned little more than a decade, her work has remained popular and highly influential. On the one hand, the enduring fascination with Hesse derives from her remarkable “life of extremes.” But Hesse’s work, itself, was very much part of an equivocal and unique era in history, when artists were seeking new modes of expression in the aftermath of Abstract Expressionism.
Faith Ringgold
Ringgold’s work as an artist, an activist, and an educator has influenced both the art world and communities beyond the art world. Her founding or co-founding of many arts organizations focused on issues faced by women of color has created many opportunities for those artists.
Sonia Delaunay
Delaunay’s textile designs extended the range of her influence into fashion, home decor and the theater. Her ability to introduce art into regular life by creating and wearing clothing, and living in spaces that were of her own design, can be seen as an early form of performance art, inspiring contemporary artists such as Marina Abramovic.
Policarpa Salavarrieta
Policarpa Salavarrieta was a Neogranadine seamstress who spied for the Revolutionary Forces during the Spanish Reconquista of the Viceroyalty of New Granada (modern-day Colombia, Ecuador, Panama and Venezuela). Considered a heroine of Colombian independence, she was captured by Spanish Royalists and executed for high treason. The anniversary of her death is commemorated with the Day of the Colombian Woman.
Amy Hadfield Hutchinson
From 1901 to 1904 Amy was matron of the boarding hostel at her old high school; a friend, Bessie Spencer, was headmistress. On 30 August 1907, at Napier, Amy married Francis (Frank) Hutchinson, a sheepfarmer from Rissington; the marriage was childless. The homestead on Frank’s farm, Omatua, had been unoccupied, except by bees, for years. Amy and Frank restored the house and garden, and Omatua became known as a place where visitors found an ‘opportunity for intellectual conversation’.