List of Illustrations
Plates
1 Mary Ellen Crisp, Untitled (1930s)—Embroidery, 79⅝ in. high × 62⅜ in.—Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, DC—1960.11.1 Gift of the artist.
2 Marguerite Zorach, Remembrance of Life in Fresno California and of My Childhood There Around the Year 1900 (1949)—Wool on linen embroidery, 17 × 251/4 in.—Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, DC—1970.65.12 Gift from the Collection of Tessim Zorach.
3 Marguerite Zorach, The Circus, New York (1929)—Wool on linen embroidery, 20½ × 22½ in. Gift of Irwin Untermyer, 1964 (64.101.1404)—The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York—Image © The Metropolitan Museum of Art/Image source: Art Resource, NY.
4 Marguerite Zorach, The Family Supper (1922)—Wool on linen embroidery, 26 × 42 in.—Zorach Collection, LLC— Digital image courtesy of Farnsworth Art Museum, Rockland, ME.
5 Georgiana Brown Harbeson, Nativity (before 1932)—Dimensions and whereabouts unknown—Front cover, Needlecraft (December 1932).
6 Marian Stoll, Untitled (1927)—Esther Fitzgerald Rare Textiles, London.
7 Marguerite and William Zorach, Maine Islands (1919)—Wool on linen embroidery, 181/4 × 501/4 in. Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, DC—1968.154.173 Gift of Dahlov Ipcar and Tessim Zorach.
8 Mary Ellen Crisp, Untitled (Flowers in Vase) (1930s)—Cotton embroidered picture with wool, 21⅝ × 253/16 in.—Gift of Joy L. Cartier and Lucile E. Callahan, 1993-34-1.—Photo: Matt Flynn-Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum, New York, NY—Photo Credit: Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum/Art Resource, NY.
9 Georgiana Brown Harbeson, Summer (The Enchanted Isle) (1931)—Front cover of Needlecraft, July 1931.
10 Georgiana Brown Harbeson, Autumn (1931)—Front cover of Needlecraft, October 1931.
11 Mary Ellen Crisp, Untitled (Manhattan from Roosevelt Island) (1930–39)—Linen embroidered picture with wool, 175/16 × 221/2 in.— Gift of Joy L. Cartier and Lucile E. Callahan, 1993-34-2.— Photo: Matt Flynn. Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum, New York, NY—Photo Credit: Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum/Art Resource, NY.
12 Marcia Stebbins, Untitled (Washington Square Park) (1930s)— Wool embroidered picture with synthetic yarns in stem, running satin stitches, 191/2 × 161/4 in.—Bequest of Gertrude M. Oppenheimer, 1981-28-131. Photo: Matt Flynn—Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum, New York, NY—Photo Credit: Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum/ Art Resource, NY.
13 Marguerite Zorach, The Sea (1917–18)—Wool on linen embroidery, 20 × 36 in.—Zorach Collection, LLC—Digital image courtesy of the Farnsworth Art Museum, Rockland, ME.
14 Marian Stoll, Jungle (1927)—Dimensions and whereabouts unknown—Reproduced in Waterhouse, “Recent Embroidery by Marian Stoll,” The Studio (September 1927), n.p.
15 Marian Stoll, Untitled (Structure in Barren Landscape) (1928–29)—Linen plain weave embroidered picture with wool— 23.5 × 20 in.—Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA—Gift of Gillian Creelman 2001.672.
16 Georgiana Brown Harbeson, Madame Amelita Galli-Curci (1924)—Embroidery on linen with wool. Simple outline, buttonhole, Rumanian, chain, running and darning stitches— Dimensions and whereabouts unknown—Reproduced in Harbeson, American Needlework (color plate), n.p.
Figures
1.1 Stitches Most Universally Used by Modern Needlepainters, Reproduced in “The Four Moderns in America, Exponents of the Newer Embroidery.” Bulletin of the Needle and Bobbin Club 19 (1935): plate xiii.
2.1 Henrietta and Fritz Winold Reiss, Untitled (Bird) (ca. 1915)—Designed by Fritz Winold Reiss, executed by Henrietta Reiss—Embroidery—Reproduced in “Tapestry Supplement,” Modern Art Collector (December 1915), n.p.—Dimensions and whereabouts unknown.
2.2 Lydia Bush-Brown, Earth (late 1920s/early 1930s)—Silk batik hanging, 5 ft. 7 in × 337/8 in.—Gift of the Estate of Lydia Bush-Brown Head, 1985-2-2—Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum, New York, NY, USA—Photo credit: Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum/Art Resource, NY.
2.3 Marguerite Zorach, The Rockefeller Family at Seal Harbor (1929–32)—Wool on linen embroidery, 4 ft. 3 in. × 5 ft. 4 in.— Estate of Margaretta F. Rockefeller Collection—Digital image courtesy of Farnsworth Art Museum, Rockland, ME.
3.1 Marguerite Zorach in her studio—Peter A. Juley & Son Collection—J0029484—Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, DC.
3.2 Marguerite Zorach, An Indian Wedding (ca. 1913)—Wool on linen embroidery, 15 × 20 in.—From the collection of Pamela C. and Elmer R. Grossman, MD—Digital image courtesy of Farnsworth Art Museum, Rockland, ME.
3.3 Marguerite Zorach, The Dance (ca. 1913)—Wool on linen embroidery, 26 in. diameter—Zorach Collection.
3.4 Marguerite Zorach, Figures in Landscape (1913)—Gouache on silk, 111/4 × 18 in.—Zorach Collection, LLC— Image courtesy of Gerald Peters Gallery, New York.
10
21
28
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34
37
38
39
3.5 Marguerite Zorach, Provincetown, Sunset and Moonrise (1916)—Oil on canvas, 273/4 × 313/4 × 2⅜ in. (70.48 × 80.64 × 6.03 cm). Sheldon Museum of Art, Nebraska Art Association, Nelle Cochrane Woods Memorial, N-229.168, Photo ©Sheldon Museum of Art. 39
3.6 Marguerite Zorach, Death of a Miner (ca. 1930–34)—Oil on canvas, 28 × 36 in.—Zorach Collection, LLC Image courtesy of Gerald Peters Gallery, New York. 40
3.7 Marguerite Zorach, The Evening Star (ca. 1945)—Oil on canvas, 25 × 30 in.—Zorach Collection, LLC—Image courtesy of Gerald Peters Gallery, New York. 41
3.8 Marguerite Zorach, The Circus (ca. 1927)—Pencil and crayon on transfer drawing paper, 243/16 × 255/16 in.—Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, DC—1968.154.27 Gift of Dahlov Ipcar and Tessim Zorach. 45
3.9 Marguerite Zorach, Ella Madison and Dahlov (1918)—Oil on canvas, 44⅞ × 351/4 in.—Williams College Museum of Art, Williamstown, MA—Museum purchase, John B. Turner ’24 Memorial Fund and Karl E. Weston Memorial Fund (91.32). 48
3.10 Marguerite Zorach, Indian Elephant (1913)—Oil on canvas, 333/4 × 273/4 in.—Zorach Collection, LLC—Photograph by author. 57
3.11 Florine Stettheimer, Family Portrait #2 (1933)—Oil on canvas, 461/4 × 645/8 in.—Gift of Miss Ettie Stettheimer (8.1956) The Museum of Modern Art—Digital image © The Museum of Modern Art/Licensed by SCALA/Art Resource, NY. 63
3.12 Florine Stettheimer, A Model (Nude Self-Portrait) (1915)— Oil on canvas, 481/4 × 681/4 in. Collection of Alan Solomon, MD—Image courtesy of Art Properties, Avery Architectural & Fine Arts Library, Columbia University, Gift of the Estate of Ettie Stettheimer, 1967—(1967.23.29). 65
4.1 Photograph of Georgiana Brown Harbeson—Reproduced in Wilson, “Watch the Needles of the Younger Generation,” Needlecraft (April 1933), 16. 70
4.2 Georgiana Brown Harbeson, Crucifixion (1930)—Embroidered altar panel hanging—Reproduced in Harbeson, American Needlework, 164b.—Dimensions and whereabouts unknown. 72
4.3 Photograph of Georgiana Brown Harbeson Making an Embroidery on the Spot, at the Hayden Galleries (1934)— Reproduced in Wilson, “Two New York Needlework Exhibits” Needlecraft (July 1934), 4. 74
4.4 Georgiana Brown Harbeson (designer), Deep South (1936)—Fabricated by Minerva Yarn Industries Needlepoint fourfold screen, 64 × 72 in.—Reproduced in Harbeson, American Needlework, 194b. 75
4.5a Mary Ellen Crisp, Untitled (South America) (ca. late 1930s, early 1940s)—Embroidery design sketch on paper, 18½ × 13½ in.—Collection of author—Photograph by Adam Pinheiro.
4.5b Mary Ellen Crisp, Untitled (South America) (ca. late 1930s, early 1940s)— Linen embroidery kit pattern, 28½ × 13½ in.—Collection of author—Photograph by Adam Pinheiro.
4.6 Mary Ellen Crisp (designer), Mayflower (1939–40)—Fabricated by Dolores Sayles—Embroidery on linen with wool, 24 × 30.5 in.— Cape Cod Pilgrim Memorial Association, Pilgrim Monument and Provincetown Museum, Provincetown, MA.
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79
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4.7 Mary Ellen Crisp (designer), Untitled (Homesteading) (ca. late 1930s, early 1940s)—Fabricated by Cora Jane Fox (early 1940s)— Embroidery on linen with wool, 11 × 15 in.—Collection of Ruth Chalfant. 81
4.8 Georgiana Brown Harbeson, Untitled (Monkeys in Trees) (before 1937)—Fabricated by Mrs. Theodore Roosevelt, Jr., and possibly Marcia Stebbins—Reproduced in Harbeson, American Needlework, 192b.—Dimensions and whereabouts unknown. 85
4.9 Marcia Stebbins, Untitled Seascape (before 1935)—Embroidery on linen—Reproduced in Harbeson, “Four Moderns,” 21.— Dimensions and whereabouts unknown. 86
4.10 Lady Ottoline Morrell, Portrait of Marian Buck Stoll (1923)—Vintage snapshot print, 23/4 in. × 21/8 in.—NPG Ax141969—National Portrait Gallery, London. 88
4.11 Marian Stoll, East of the Sun and West of the Moon— Reproduced in Ellis Waterhouse, “Recent Embroidery by Marian Stoll,” The Studio (September 1927)—Dimensions and whereabouts unknown. 90
5.1 Marguerite and William Zorach, Waterfall (1915–17)— Wool on linen embroidery—Dimensions and whereabouts unknown—Reproduced in Hoffman, Marguerite and William Zorach: The Cubist Years, 31. 95
5.2 Marguerite Zorach, Study for Maine Islands (ca. 1919)— Pencil on board, 111/16 × 141/16 in. Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, DC—1970.65.68 Gift from the collection of Tessim Zorach. 96
5.3 Marguerite Zorach, Father and Daughter (1918)— Pencil on board, 111/16 × 141/16 in. Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, DC—1970.65.9 Gift from the collection of Tessim Zorach. 97
5.4 Marguerite Zorach, A New England Family (1917–18)—Oil on canvas, 30 × 22 in.—Zorach Collection, LLC-Digital image courtesy of the Farnsworth Art Museum, Rockland, ME. 98
5.5 Marguerite Zorach, Pegasus (ca. 1918)—Wool embroidery purse, 9½ × 71/4 in.—Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, DC—1968.87.15 Gift from the collection of Tessim Zorach. 100
5.6 Photograph of Mary Ellen and Arthur Crisp in their Studio (n.d.)— Arthur Crisp Papers, Special Collections Research Center, Syracuse University Libraries, Syracuse, NY. 102
5.7 Photograph of Arthur Crisp, Diana of the White Horse (before 1921)—Mural in Fine Arts Building, Architectural League, W. 57th St., NY (destroyed in a fire on January 20, 1920)—Arthur Crisp Papers, Special Collections Research Center, Syracuse University Libraries, Syracuse, NY. 103
5.8 Mary Ellen Crisp, Diana (before 1935)—Embroidery on linen— Reproduced in Harbeson, “The Four Moderns,” 22.—Dimensions and whereabouts unknown. 104
5.9 Georgiana Brown Harbeson, Still Life (1932)—Front cover of Needlecraft, October 1932. 106
5.10 Georgiana Brown Harbeson, Surrealist Falcon—Reproduced in Minerva Needlepoint Book (1937), 13. 109
5.11 Georgiana Brown Harbeson, Bounding Deer—Front cover of Minerva Needlepoint Book (1937). 110
5.12 Georgiana Brown Harbeson, Summer and Autumn—Reproduced in Minerva Needlepoint Book (1937), 27. 111
5.13 Georgiana Brown Harbeson, Deep South—Reproduced in Minerva Needlecraft Book (1937), 45. 112
6.1 John Marin, Lower Manhattan (1922)—Gouache and charcoal with paper cut-out attached with thread on paper, 215/8 × 267/8 in.— Acquired through the Lillie P. Bliss Bequest—Museum of Modern Art, New York—Digital image © The Museum of Modern Art/Licensed by SCALA/Art Resource, NY. 118
6.2 Marguerite Zorach, The City of New York in the Year Nineteen Hundred and Twenty (1920) Wool on linen embroidery, approx. 48 × 24 in.—Zorach Collection, LLC-Photograph by author. 120
6.3 Marguerite Zorach, Sixth Avenue L (1924)—Watercolor and graphite on heavy wove paper 22⅜ × 155/8 in.—Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH—Gift of Abby Aldrich Rockefeller. 121
6.4 Georgia O’Keeffe, The Shelton with Sunspots, N.Y, (1926)—Oil on canvas, 48½ × 301/4 in Signed, titled, and dated on label on reverse. Gift of Leigh B. Block, 1985.206—The Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, IL, USA—Photo Credit: The Art Institute of Chicago/Art Resource, NY. 126
6.5 Marguerite Zorach, For Bill and Lucy L’Engle (1924)—Wool on linen embroidery, 28 × 21 in. Zorach collection, LLC— Photograph by author. 128
6.6 Marguerite Zorach, Nude Reclining (1922)—Oil on canvas, 29 × 301/4 in.—Courtesy of the National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington, DC—Gift of Wallace and Wilhelmina Holladay—Photograph by Lee Stalsworth.
6.7 Marguerite Zorach, Blue Cinerarias (ca. 1932)—Oil on canvas, 46 × 38 in.—Zorach Collection, LLC—Image courtesy of Gerald Peters Gallery, New York.
6.8 Marguerite Zorach, The Circus (1924)—Oil on canvas, 54 × 44 in.—Private collection—Image courtesy of Kraushaar Galleries— Photo credit Geoffrey Clements, NY.
6.9 Elizabeth Roth, New York from Central Park (1934)—Reproduced in Harbeson, American Needlework, 186a.—Dimensions and whereabouts unknown.
7.1 Marguerite Zorach, The Family, White Mountains (1915–16)— Wool on linen embroidery, 19 × 17 in. Zorach Collection, LLC— Photograph by author.
7.2 Marguerite Zorach, The Family, White Mountains (1915)— Watercolor on paper, 111/4 × 16½ in. Zorach Collection, LLC—Photograph by author.
7.3 Marguerite Zorach, The Home (before 1923)—Wool on linen embroidery—Dimensions and whereabouts unknown— Reproduced on front page of brochure for Montross Gallery exhibition, Exhibition of Embroidered Tapestries by Marguerite Zorach (1923).
7.4 Georgiana Brown Harbeson, Summer (The Garden of Love) (1932)—Front cover of Needlecraft, June 1932.
7.5 Georgiana Brown Harbeson, Spring (1932)—Front cover of Needlecraft, April 1932.
7.6 Georgiana Brown Harbeson, Winter (1932)—Front cover of Needlecraft, February 1932.
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148
7.7 Georgiana Brown Harbeson, Sea Fantasy (1934)—Front cover of Needlecraft, July 1934. 150
7.8 Mary Ellen Crisp, Untitled Landscape (before 1938)—Embroidery, 7 × 10 ft.—Whereabouts unknown. Reproduced in Harbeson, American Embroidery, 186a. 151
7.9 Marian Stoll, Untitled (Landscape with Building) (1928)—Esther Fitzgerald Rare Textiles, London. 152
7.10 Marian Stoll, Greek Temple (1927)—Esther Fitzgerald Rare Textiles, London. 153
7.11 Marian Stoll, Untitled (Village) (date illegible)—Esther Fitzgerald Rare Textiles, London. 154
7.12 Marian Stoll, The Storm (ca. 1933)—Dimensions and whereabouts unknown—Reproduced in Margaret Hogarth, Modern Embroidery, 23. 155
7.13 Marian Stoll, New England Village (before 1938)—Reproduced in Harbeson, American Needlework, 184b. 156
8.1 Katherine Dreier, Abstract Portrait of Marcel Duchamp (1918)— Oil on canvas, 18 × 32 in.—Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Fund. The Museum of Modern Art, New York—Digital image © The Museum of Modern Art/Licensed by SCALA/ Art Resource, NY. 160
8.2 Marguerite Zorach, Bea Ault, 1925—oil on canvas, 44 × 30 in. (111.8 × 76.2 cm)—Courtesy of Kraushaar Galleries, New York. 162
8.3 Marguerite Zorach, The Jonas Family (1927)—Linen embroidery with wool using stem, chain, buttonhole, herringbone, satin and Romanian stitches on plain weave, 515/8 × 50⅜ in.—Gift of Richard H. Frost, 1996-112-1. Photo: Matt Flynn–Cooper Hewitt. Smithsonian Design Museum, New York, NY, USA—Photo Credit: Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum/Art Resource, NY. 166
8.4 Marguerite Zorach, Maine Sheriff (1930)—Oil on linen, 201/8 × 301/8 in.—Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; purchase 31.386—Digital image © Whitney Museum, NY. 168
8.5 Marguerite Zorach, Robinhood Farm: Georgetown Island Maine in the Year 1937 (1937)—Wool on linen embroidery,
40 × 32 in.—Reproduced in Tarbell, William and Marguerite Zorach: The Maine Years (1979), 19—Whereabouts unknown. 169
8.6 Marguerite Zorach, The Ipcar Family at Robinhood Farm (1944)—Wool on linen embroidery, 17½ × 23½ in.— Zorach Collection, LLC—Digital image courtesy of Farnsworth Art Museum, Rockland, ME. 171
8.7 Marguerite Zorach, Peggy and Tessim Zorach Family (1944)— Wool on linen embroidery, 17½ × 24½ in.—Zorach Collection, LLC—Image courtesy of Farnsworth Art Museum, Rockland, ME. 172
8.8 Marguerite Zorach, Memories of My California Childhood (1921)—Oil on canvas, 30 × 25 in.—Brooklyn Museum—Gift of Dr. Robert Leslie in memory of Dr. Sarah K. Greenberg, 72.99— Photograph by Sarah DeSantis, Brooklyn Museum— © Zorach Collection, LLC. 174
8.9 Marguerite Zorach, Still Life (Remembrance of Things Past) (1930)—Oil on canvas, 34 × 28½ in.—Zorach Collection, LLC—Image courtesy of Gerald Peters Gallery, New York. 177
8.10 Georgia Brown Harbeson, Sacajawea—Front cover of Needlecraft, July 1933. 186
8.11 Georgian Brown Harbeson, Pocahontas—Front cover of Needlecraft, April 1933. 187
9.1 Marion Fuller, Cottage Garden (c 1935)—Fuller, “A Gay Garden with Tulips,” Needlecraft (May 1935). 194
Acknowledgments
This book has been a long time coming. My interest in the topic began with my dissertation on the embroideries of Marguerite Zorach as a graduate student at the University of Delaware. Although the focus of my scholarship shifted away from Zorach’s embroideries after graduation, I remained committed to publishing a book on them. They are exquisite examples of the creative potential of the medium, and in my estimation, they represent Zorach’s finest work. Thus, in my research, I was excited to discover one of Zorach’s contemporaries, Georgiana Brown Harbeson, an artist who shared my enthusiasm for her embroideries. Harbeson was a prolific embroiderer herself and an outspoken advocate for the artistic potential of embroidery. She first identified the modern embroidery movement in America that is the subject of this book. I have come to admire both Harbeson and Zorach for their feminist perspectives and for their perseverance in advancing a medium so intrinsic to the lives of women. My gratitude extends to many individuals. First, I would like to acknowledge Dr. Roberta Tarbell. I am indebted to her groundbreaking scholarship on Zorach’s paintings, which have provided the foundation for my own work on Zorach’s embroideries. Tarbell served as a reader for my dissertation on these embroideries and I will always be grateful for her guidance during the years in which I researched this topic and for providing me with an important introduction to Zorach family members.
Several of Zorach’s most important embroideries would not be illustrated in this book if it wasn’t for the generosity of the Farnsworth Art Museum’s Jane Bianco and Sheryl McMahon in providing me with the images. I was first acquainted with Jane several years ago when she reached out to me about an exhibition she was curating on Zorach, titled Marguerite Zorach: An ArtFilled Life. I thank Jane for including me in this project. The exhibition and accompanying catalog will most certainly make a significant contribution to furthering our understanding of Zorach’s work.
Similarly, I want to thank Stephen Borkowski, chair of the Collections Committee of the Pilgrim Monument and Provincetown Museum. He made an astute purchase with The Mayflower embroidery designed by Mary Ellen Crisp that is now beautifully conserved and part of the museum’s collection. Stephen
arranged for me to view the embroidery and could not have been more hospitable during my visit. He provided me with a beautiful image of the embroidery to meet the deadline for this book, which required much maneuvering on his part to do so. I am truly grateful for his efforts in ensuring I had the image, but even more, for sharing in my excitement about the discovery of this Crisp embroidery.
I also want to thank Cathie Zusy for reaching out to me about a Crisp embroidery kit purchased by her family in the 1940s. The embroidery’s subject of a homesteading scene was beautifully executed by Zusy’s relative, Cora Jane Cox, and remains in the family as a testament to their homesteading heritage. The story of the Cox embroidery demonstrates the value of these embroideries for the families that cherish them. Unfortunately, the Cox embroidery is the only embroidery for which I have such specific detail on its history so it is particularly meaningful to have its story included in this book.
Gillian Creelman of Vinalhaven, Maine, must also be recognized for the important role she has played in preserving several embroideries by Marian Stoll. An embroidery teacher affiliated with the Millbrook Needlework Guild, Creelman was approached by the Southmayd Home in Waterbury, Connecticut, where Stoll died in 1960, about disposing of Stoll’s embroideries. Creelman immediately realized the quality of the embroideries; she held on to them for over forty years until she was able to find homes for them in museums. Four of Stoll’s embroidered pictures, including one reproduced in this book, are now in the collection of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and two additional works are preserved in Stoll’s hometown of Waterbury at the Mattatuck Museum, thanks to Creelman’s efforts. Olga Hansen, another teacher at Millbrook, was also given two of Stoll’s embroideries to preserve. Without these women recognizing the significance and quality of Stoll’s work, these wonderful works of art might easily have been lost.
Thanks to Kathy Woodside at the Jesup Memorial Library in Bar Harbor, Maine, for guiding me as I waded through files related to the art exhibitions held at the library in the early twentieth century. Kathy was generous with her time and connected me to the family of Marcia Stebbins, an invaluable connection in that the family provided me with important background information on Marcia for the book. While doing research at the Jesup, I met author Carl Little, who along with his brother David has published many books on Maine. Carl provided me with the contact information I needed to get permission to publish an image of the Zorach Rockefeller Family embroidery.
My sincere thanks and deep appreciation go out to the Society for the Preservation of American Modernists (SPAM) for providing me with a
publication grant to help offset the costs associated with gaining permissions for the reproduction of images. I am honored to be among the outstanding group of American modernists who have received funding from SPAM. My home institution of Emmanuel College has also provided financial support for image reproduction costs and my research overall. A special thanks to Emmanuel reference librarian Diane Zydlewski for always being there when I needed to track down even the most obscure sources. Thanks to art history major Adam Pinheiro (class of 2017) for his work as my research assistant and for helping me to ensure that the images for this book were of the highest quality possible. Adam has demonstrated outstanding potential as a scholar and I look forward to watching his career in art history develop.
I am always grateful to the Zorach family for supporting my research over the years. I have fond memories of trips to Maine to visit Peggy Zorach, Marguerite’s daughter-in-law, and Dahlov Ipcar, her daughter. Both women warmly welcomed me into their homes and provided me with invaluable information on Marguerite’s life and work. Dahlov died in 2017 at age ninety-nine and after an illustrious career as a painter, illustrator, and writer. Thanks to Peter Zorach for providing me with the permissions to use the Zorach images.
My family and friends have inspired me over the years to continue my work on this project. I appreciate their openness in always welcoming me back into their lives after I have emerged from the depths of my research.
Introduction
In the first half of the twentieth century, a group of American women artists dedicated themselves to embroidery as a form of artistic expression. The embroideries they made were consciously designed and executed to demonstrate their training as painters and more specifically their adherence to the principles of modern art. In the early 1930s, artist Georgiana Brown Harbeson declared that the embroideries created by these women constituted a “modern embroidery movement” in America. In a 1935 article, she identified the key contributors to this movement: Marguerite Zorach, Marcia Stebbins, Mary Ellen Crisp, and herself.1 In a book she published three years later, Harbeson added embroiderer Marian Stoll to the group.2 Harbeson’s efforts were recognized by her contemporary Frances Morris, an associate curator of textiles at the Metropolitan Museum of Art from 1922 until 1929 and a lifelong advocate of textiles, who described Harbeson as “the foremost American exponent of the modern movement in embroidery.”3 This book is an examination of the embroideries created by this dynamic group of women artists who turned to needlework as a preferred form of artistic expression. It considers the arguments put forth by Harbeson and her collaborators that embroidery should be evaluated with the same seriousness as any other art form. It also considers the reception of these arguments by critics and contemporary evaluations of the embroideries themselves when they were on exhibit. Most importantly, it provides a close examination of individual embroideries, which have received little serious analysis by art historians. Fundamentally, this book continues Harbeson’s project of documenting the history of modern embroidery in America. More broadly, it demonstrates that American artists in the first half of the twentieth century contributed to the advancement of modern craft and the decorative arts concurrently with their European counterparts whose contributions have already been recognized by scholars.
“Needlepainting”:
An argument for embroidery as art
The women artists who contributed to the modern embroidery movement in America were all quite articulate in their arguments for the potential of embroidery as a form of modern art. However, Harbeson became their most untiring spokesperson. In a 1933 interview for the Christian Science Monitor, she expressed her belief that embroidery was as legitimate a form of artistic expression as any other medium. She explained:
I have always believed that an artist should express herself in many mediums. Each expression is enriched by all that has been learned from the other techniques. That which, spontaneously and inevitably, I put into my embroidery is the cumulative effect of having worked in water colors, of battling with the problems of mural decoration, of inventing dances and of experimenting with the complexities of design for stage sets and ballets—of which I have done a number for Broadway productions.4
Harbeson’s emphasis on the value of experimentation in a wide variety of media reflects a view shared by many American modernists at this time.
Harbeson wrote two key texts on modern embroidery: her 1935 article, titled “The Four Moderns: Exponents of the Newer Embroidery,” and her book titled American Needlework: The History of Decorative Stitchery from the Late 16th to the 20th Century, published in 1938, which included several chapters dedicated to modern embroidery. In both her article and book, Harbeson described contemporary trends in embroidery in which modern artists were applying the principles of painting to needlework. She used the term “needlepainting” to describe this trend.5 As she explained in her book, “‘Needlepainting’, a term coined by the author to describe certain types of modern needlework, implies an approach to embroidery from a painter’s point of view. Needlework is handled the same as canvases, paint, and brushes would be used, and similar decorative angles are employed in composition.”6 For Harbeson, the needle was the equivalent of a paint brush, thread the equivalent of paint, and linen that of the painter’s canvas. She evaluated embroideries on the basis of how successfully they replicated the techniques and aesthetics of painting and gave specific instruction on how this could be accomplished using a needle and thread.
Harbeson’s belief that embroidery should be informed by the painting tradition mandated that embroiderers be trained in the arts. In her article, she argued that “the seriousness and dignity to be realized in embroidery as a medium of pure art” required “serious training in art,” specifically in painting.7
She considered originality of design to be essential, a position not surprising for an advocate of needlework as art, although she also recognized the artistic merit of embroideries made by following patterns. The four principal women whom Harbeson celebrated as contributors to the modern embroidery movement— Zorach, Stebbins, Crisp, and Stoll—had all been trained as painters and had already had at least one solo show in a New York art gallery when she wrote her article.8 More specifically, Harbeson advocated for embroidery that embodied the principles of modern art. For Harbeson, modern embroidery, and modern art in general, was not just defined by a specific style, but by an attitude toward subject matter. But even that attitude was not rigidly defined. The modern attitude that Harbeson described was characterized by an openness to experimentation whether in subject, style, or choice of medium, an openness that emerged when artists listened to their individual voices and followed their unique paths. Understanding of what constituted modern art shifted significantly as the decades of the twentieth century progressed, but Harbeson remained steadfast in her commitment to embroidery as an appropriate medium for modernists.
Contributors to the modern embroidery movement
While Harbeson was the most widely published advocate for modern embroidery, American modern artist Marguerite Zorach set the stage for the modern embroidery movement that Harbeson later identified. She made embroideries at the start of her art career in 1910s New York and continued to make them throughout her life. Zorach’s choice to work in embroidery was first inspired by her desire to replicate the bright colors she had seen in Fauvist paintings during her travels in France. In a 1956 article for Art in America, she recalled, “In 1912, when I returned from Paris full of enthusiasm over the world of lively color the Fauves had discovered, paint seemed dull and inadequate to me. The wealth of beautiful and brilliant colors available in woolen yarns so fascinated me that I tried to paint my pictures in wool.”9 Zorach’s commitment to embroidery is demonstrated by the choice she made to exhibit her embroideries—and other textiles—alongside her paintings. A significant portion of this book is dedicated to Zorach as a major contributor to the modern embroidery movement. The most celebrated artist among the group, and already recognized by art historians for her contribution to the development of
American modern art, Zorach created large-scale embroideries throughout her career that engaged the same ideas and principles of her paintings.
The other women who contributed to the modern embroidery movement are little recognized today, although all of them were active artists during their lifetimes and at times supported themselves and their families through their embroidery sales. This book reconstructs their artistic careers and evaluates their work within the context of American modernist concerns. Harbeson, Zorach, Crisp, Stebbins, and Stoll are the focus, but additional women embroiderers are also introduced. Fortunately, several key works by these artists have been preserved. The Cooper-Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum holds embroideries by Stebbins and Crisp. The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and Esther Fitzgerald Rare Textiles in London hold embroideries by Stoll. An Untitled embroidery by Crisp (1930s) (plate 1), extraordinary as one of the most abstract embroideries among the extant works, is in the collection of the Smithsonian American Art Museum, as is one of Zorach’s most accomplished embroideries, Remembrance of Life in Fresno California and of My Childhood There Around the Year 1900 (1949) (plate 2). Harbeson’s embroidery designs are documented through color reproductions of them found on the covers of Needlecraft, a magazine dedicated to the “home arts.” Her published writing on the subject of modern embroidery also provides invaluable illustrations of the embroideries created by these women. Reviews of exhibitions in which these embroideries were displayed are another important source of information. Together, this documentation, limited as it is, provides the foundation for the reconstruction of the history of the American modern embroidery movement.
Modern embroidery and the craft tradition
Harbeson’s advocacy for the artistic potential of embroidery coincided with a major craft revival in America. During the 1930s, craft programs were supported throughout the United States by New Deal policies designed to provide economic relief from the impact of the Depression. Support for craft extended into the private sector as well. Craft programs were established in a wide range of institutions, including schools, museums, and community art centers.10 As curator Hildreth York has summarized, these programs “provided income, selfhelp, and rehabilitation for the unemployed, countering the ills of the Depression as well as the more long-term effects of industrialization and mechanization that had wiped out many artisans, workshops, and craft industries in this country.”11
The success of 1930s craft programs culminated with a major craft exhibition held in the American Art Today building at the 1939–40 New York World’s Fair. The exhibition was strongly influenced by WPA/FAP director Holgar Cahill.12 In addition to the craft on display, the exhibition included a WPA/FAP Community Art Center with handicraft demonstrations, which reflected Cahill’s interest in offering craft activities for “the average person” as an alternative to “the passive appreciation of the work of a few exceptionally brilliant individuals.”13 Cahill’s perspective on craft reflects the continuum that defined craft, which ran from craft as an amateur pursuit to a form of artistic expression that required professional training. Harbeson’s approach to embroidery was one that challenged this binary. Taking a progressive view on the artistic potential of all individuals, she believed that “amateur” embroiderers, if they followed well-designed patterns, had the potential to create “museum quality” work. Furthermore, in an interview with Harbeson the year before she died, the interviewer explained, “She believed that only widespread practice and enthusiasm would generate the experience and experimentation that would allow needlework to develop as a fine art.”14
The 1930s craft revival in the United States had important historical roots. The 1920s were also characterized by efforts to “preserve and broaden production and marketing bases of the crafts.”15 Craft historian Janet Kardon’s Revivals! Diverse Traditions, 1920-1945 provides evidence of the flourishing of the crafts in the 1920s.16 The Arts and Crafts movement set the strongest historical precedent for American craft. Although it took hold in the nineteenth century, it continued to influence the American craft tradition into the twentieth century. Art historian Wendy Kaplan has summarized that the American Arts and Crafts movement had “by World War I, made a major impact on American art and American life.” She observes, “In altering attitudes toward the fabrication and use of objects, it changed fundamental perceptions regarding design, the home, and work.”17 In this regard, Gustav Stickley’s furniture designs and his monthly periodical The Craftsman, published from 1901 to 1916, warrant specific recognition. Most pertinent to this book, The Craftsman did not exclude textiles in its efforts to bolster American craftsmanship. Providing a precedent to Harbeson’s needlework patterns published in Needlecraft, The Craftsman published needlework patterns for amateurs as early as 1903.18
Throughout the history of American craft, artists played a significant role in invigorating the craft tradition through their experiments in craft media. In their survey of the history of studio craft, craft historians Janet Koplos and Bruce Metcalf identify a large number of professionally trained artists who worked in craft. Metcalf and Koplos focus on studio craft, which they define as “handwork
with aesthetic intent, largely or wholly created by individuals (usually art school or university trained) to their own designs.”19 The embroideries under consideration in this book fall within this definition in that the embroiderers who made them insisted upon the necessity of professional art training. Historically marginalized within the craft tradition as women’s handicraft, embroidery made by professional artists challenged this marginalization. In their book, Metcalf and Koplos recognize Zorach and other modern embroiderers for their individual contributions, but they do not connect their individual efforts to a larger movement. It is the argument of this book that artists working in the crafts were more than individual actors. Their choices reflected a shared appreciation among American modern artists for the value of the craft tradition in expanding artistic practices as a whole. Zorach, Harbeson, and their collaborators shared a belief in embroidery as a meaningful form of artistic expression and demonstrated this belief publicly and consistently throughout their careers. They often exhibited their work together and they publicly acknowledged each other’s work. In these ways, they formed a cohesive, albeit loosely connected, movement.
Easily aligned with studio craft practices in their emphasis on professional art training, the modern embroiderers considered in this book often operated outside of studio craft practices in their willingness at times to design embroideries that were executed by others. This separation between designer and fabricator aligns modern embroidery with the newly emerging field of design, in which this separation was necessary to fulfill the design goal of producing objects in multiples. While Zorach and Stoll remained most true to the studio craft ideal of the artist as both designer and fabricator of a unique work, Harbeson and Crisp designed patterns for embroideries that were sold by magazines and department stores. Harbeson also worked with industry to produce designs for clothing accessories and a wide variety of objects for home decoration. Even Zorach designed textiles for industry in the early years of her career; and in 1937 and 1942 she submitted rug designs to the Museum of Modern Art for rug exhibitions in which her rug designs were fabricated by the Crawford Shops and V’Soske, Inc. respectively.20 Following the tradition of the decorative arts, Harbeson, Crisp, and Stoll also made unique functional embroidered objects for sale to individuals and to organizations such as churches. Furthermore, rather than denigrating the embroideries made by embroiderers not trained in the arts, modern embroiderers often expressed appreciation for embroideries by so-called hobbyists and amateurs, many of whom had much more experience in making embroideries than their professionally trained associates. By its inclusiveness, the modern embroidery movement often transcended the more highly regulated
boundaries that have come to define the fine arts tradition. Instead, they reflect the actuality that in the first half of the twentieth century, these boundaries were far more fluid than they came to be defined by midcentury.
Embroidery and feminism
From the Colonial period on, embroidery and other forms of needlework were positioned as a form of women’s handicraft in ways that reinforced traditional notions of gender.21 However, during the 1920s and 1930s, perceptions of needlework were changing along with changing perspectives on the roles of women. Evidence of a more progressive view of needlework comes from needlework magazines. As historian Rachel Maines concludes from her research on these magazines, “Some of the needlework press . . . were noticeably prowoman in their outlook.”22 Maines specifically identifies Needlecraft magazine, the magazine to which Harbeson contributed designs, as “outspoken in their views on women’s issues.”23 In a profile on Harbeson published in Needlecraft, Florence Yoder Wilson, a regular contributor to the magazine, expressed this view. Celebrating Harbeson for her modern approach to embroidery design, Wilson recalled an editorial she had previously written on the status of needlework. She wrote, “I said that since women now had the freedom they had struggled for so long, there was no more need for them to disavow the symbols of their bondage of the past, and that all of the home arts were to come to the front again, refreshed by their temporary eclipse, to enjoy an era of renewed activity inspired by deeper and broader feeling.”24 For Wilson and others, needlework was a vehicle for women to celebrate their identities as liberated women.
Needlework functioned not just as a symbol of women’s new freedom. More importantly, it often provided women with at least some financial independence. Maines observes that “having one’s own money to spend as an alternative to the ‘bread of dependence’ was also the subject of Needlecraft editorials.”25 It should be noted that needlework was not always created under ideal working conditions; some women needleworkers suffered under working conditions equivalent to those of factory work.26 The women discussed in this book held more privileged positions. When they worked with industry, they were hired as pattern designers rather than as laborers. They sold functional objects, like chair covers and purses that were commissioned by individuals and organizations, particularly churches, but even these were created as unique objects. Selling many of their embroideries as art, they earned significant income by creating
individual embroideries recognized for their unique qualities that distinguished them from mass produced ones. Harbeson supported herself and her children exclusively through her embroidery, while for most women, embroidery supplemented family income. In The Invention of Craft, craft historian Glenn Adamson observes that “across the panoply of women’s experience, craft [and embroidery as such] emerges as a complex and contradictory form of self-reliance.”27 Adamson’s observation reflects the experiences of the women embroiderers discussed in this book; they gained financial benefits from making embroideries, and in some instances, entrance into the art world through their embroidery, but at the same time suffered from the marginalization of their work as craft rather than art.
Defining the modern as decorative
A review of the embroideries discussed in this book reveals a wide array of artistic styles. Almost all of the embroideries are pictorial works that experiment with differing degrees of abstraction. Modern embroidery styles were not stagnant but shifted in accordance with other trends in modern art so that 1920s embroideries are distinctively different from those of the 1930s. For example, Zorach’s work from the 1920s is clearly influenced by cubism and expressionist coloration, while her work from the 1930s reflects the American Regionalist interest in realism. Since the 1990s, art historical scholarship has successfully demonstrated that, as art historian Christopher Reed has summarized, the history of modern art must be constructed with a broad enough lens to include the “wide range of people and practices that once had claim to be considered ‘modern’.”28 Reed’s observation supports the argument presented in this book that the modern embroidery movement should be included in any comprehensive history of modern art.
Many of the modern embroideries examined in this book can be described as decorative in that descriptive detail and ornamentation are integrated into their designs. This raises the complex question of the role of the decorative in the development of modern art. Several scholars have contributed to a new understanding of how the decorative influenced the development of modern art. In The Nabis and Intimate Modernism, art historian Katherine Kuenzli reconsiders the Nabis by rejecting the decorative and domestic as “terms of derision as they have been understood in canonical formulations of modernism.”29 As Kuenzli explains, her book “seeks to recover the intellectual seriousness and
artistic ambition underlying the Nabis’ practice of decoration, and argues for its crucial importance to painterly modernism.”30 In her assessment of embroidery collaborations between two modernist couples—Wassily Kandinsky and Gabriele Münter, and Sophie Taeuber and Hans Arp—art historian Bibiana Obler has observed that “the discourse of the decorative . . . was heavily overdetermined by gender connotations”31 Noting that recent scholarship on the decorative has focused on male artists, Obler argues that “women, too, were integrally involved in the melding of art and life through the decorative.”32 Challenging derogatory art historical constructions of the decorative, Christopher Reed fundamentally rejects the equation of the “cozy and the decorative” with the “superficial and the unimportant.”33 He calls for the recognition of a “less heroic” domestic modernism as an alternative to mainstream modernism’s “heroic odyssey on the high seas of consciousness, with no time to spare for the mundane details of home life and housekeeping.”34 Finally, to the extent that the extensive use of detail in embroidery was tied to traditional art practices—and in opposition to modernist interests in abstraction—art historian Alastair Wright’s scholarship on Henri Matisse is instructive. In his consideration of the ways that Matisse engaged both modernist abstraction and traditional painting techniques, Wright argues that “Matisse’s work occupies an unsettling zone between modernism and tradition, offering not a synthesis but an unmasking of each of these terms.”35 All of this scholarship has implications for an understanding of modern embroidery. These expanded constructions of the history of modern art make it far more difficult to dismiss modern embroidery as falling outside of the parameters of the modernist project.
While the scholars mentioned above have tackled the relationship between art and decoration, Adamson has taken on the equally challenging task of defining the relationship between the decorative and craft. In his book thinking through craft, he warns, “Often there is an accidental conflation of the two terms, as if craft could be reduced to its role in creating the decorative. . . . Decorated objects may or may not be crafted, and objects that are crafted may or may not be decorative. We might hazard that this is a distinction between means and ends: whereas craft is a supplemental kind of making, decoration is a supplemental kind of form. Though the decorative has no isometric relationship to craft, it is nonetheless true that the two are often found together and have strikingly parallel positions in art theory.”36 Adamson’s position on craft—and the decorative—as “supplemental” reflects a fundamental aspect of his view on “the history of modern craft to be a mirror image of the history of modern art: a supplement to its narrative of progress and conceptual discovery.”37 As
both craft objects and, more often than not, decorative in design, the modern embroideries discussed in this book can be categorized as “supplemental” and thus operate as an important historical challenge to the limited narrative of the history of art described by Adamson. Adamson also argues that idea of craft as supplemental can be applied to its materiality in that “material specificity is oppositional to the ambition of modern art to achieve a purely visual effect” [Adamson’s emphasis].38 The medium of embroidery has a specific relationship to materiality. Its haptic quality, particularly in some of the most heavily stitched
Figure 1.1 Stitches Most Universally Used by Modern Needlepainters, Reproduced in “The Four Moderns in America, Exponents of the Newer Embroidery.” Bulletin of the Needle and Bobbin Club 19 (1935): plate xiii.
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