id: 148311
accession number: 1975.39
share license status: Copyrighted
url: https://clevelandart.org/art/1975.39
updated: 2019-07-31 08:02:27.568000
Untitled, 1974. Lenore Tawney (American, 1907-2007). Linen, cotton, metal, wood; warp-faced plain weave with appliquéd blue jean fragments and buttons; overall: 200.2 x 66.3 cm (78 13/16 x 26 1/8 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Gift of The Textile Arts Club 1975.39
title: Untitled
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creation date: 1974
creation date earliest: 1974
creation date latest: 1974
current location:
creditline: Gift of The Textile Arts Club
copyright:
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culture: America, 20th century
technique: linen, cotton, metal, wood; warp-faced plain weave with appliquéd blue jean fragments and buttons
department: Textiles
collection: T - Contemporary Fiber Art
type: Textile
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CREATORS
* Lenore Tawney (American, 1907-2007) - artist
Tawney was born Leonora Agnes Gallagher in Lorain, Ohio, in 1907. She studied drawing, sculpture, and weaving with well-known artists at the University of Illinois in Champaign-Urbana (1943-45), the Institute of Design in Chicago (1946-48), and at the Penland School of Crafts in North Carolina where she became a weaver (1954). Throughout her prolific career, Tawney has had numerous one-person exhibitions and participated in many group exhibitions, including the renowned landmark international Fiberworks at the Cleveland Museum of Art in 1977. Her work is represented in many major museums, including four pieces in the Cleveland Museum of Art, and she has received numerous awards, including the American Craft Council's Gold Medal in 1987. Tawney's "flag" is one of the highlights of the museum's contemporary fiber art collection, which includes about 100 works.
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measurements: Overall: 200.2 x 66.3 cm (78 13/16 x 26 1/8 in.)
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CURRENT EXHIBITIONS
title: Object in Focus: Untitled, 1974, by Lenore Tawney [linen, cotton: warp-faced plain weave with appliqued blue jean fragments and buttons 1975.39]
opening date: 2000-06-13T00:00:00
Object in Focus: Untitled, 1974, by Lenore Tawney [linen, cotton: warp-faced plain weave with appliqued blue jean fragments and buttons 1975.39]. The Cleveland Museum of Art (organizer) (June 13-August 13, 2000).
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LEGACY EXHIBITIONS
* CMA 1976: "Year in Review for 1975"
CMA, "Material Matters,…" [11/21-12/30/84]
Cleveland Center for Contemporary Art, "Old Glory: The American Flag in Contemporary Art," [6/14/94-8/14/94]
Cleveland, Ohio: The Cleveland Museum of Art; June 13 - August 13, 2000. "Object in Focus: Untitled by Lenore Tawney."
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PROVENANCE
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Lenore Tawney is internationally recognized as a pioneer in post-World War II American art. She transformed the traditional two-dimensional textile surface into expressive three-dimensional forms and expanded the media of collage and assemblage. In 1955, Tawney began radical experiments in weaving by leaving open spaces between the vertical warps. She created startling juxtapositions between unwoven and woven areas, which she displayed as three-dimensional hangings in space instead of on walls.
In 1974, Tawney created a series of weavings based on the American flag. Other versions include the same red and natural linen stripes with buttons either on painted newsprint or, in a miniature version, on denim. As with many artists who have created renditions of the flag since Jasper Johns displayed his flag paintings at the Leo Castelli gallery in New York in 1958, Tawney's bold work reflects both social and political sentiments. In a note written to the museum's textile curator in 1975, when this "flag" was donated by the Textile Arts Club (now the Textile Art Alliance), the affiliate group of the Textile Department, she described its significance:
For years I had thought of flags and banners. So I finally did it.... After the long series of exposures of the Nixon crimes (and others) I felt our flag was being shamed, hence it is "untitled." It goes back to beginnings. Instead of Betsy Ross's petticoat, a friend gave me her blue jeans, and the blue jean buttons are the stars, dark and not proud. But still the true sentiments of that early time are there, the "true-blue," the good and strong linen.
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RELATED WORKS
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