id: 150405
accession number: 1981.193
share license status: Copyrighted
url: https://clevelandart.org/art/1981.193
updated: 2023-08-23 22:42:40.420000
Calligraphic Message, 1977. Lenore Tawney (American, 1907–2007). Pen and black ink and collage; image: 10.4 x 15 cm (4 1/8 x 5 7/8 in.); sheet: 10.4 x 15 cm (4 1/8 x 5 7/8 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Gift of Katharine Kuh 1981.193 © Lenore G. Tawney Foundation
title: Calligraphic Message
title in original language:
series:
series in original language:
creation date: 1977
creation date earliest: 1977
creation date latest: 1977
current location:
creditline: Gift of Katharine Kuh
copyright: © Lenore G. Tawney Foundation
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culture: America, 20th century
technique: pen and black ink and collage
department: Drawings
collection: DR - American 20th Century
type: Drawing
find spot:
catalogue raisonne:
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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: Image: 10.4 x 15 cm (4 1/8 x 5 7/8 in.); Sheet: 10.4 x 15 cm (4 1/8 x 5 7/8 in.)
state of the work:
edition of the work:
support materials:
description: postcard
watermarks:
inscriptions:
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CURRENT EXHIBITIONS
title: The Year in Review for 1981
opening date: 1982-02-17T05:00:00
The Year in Review for 1981. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (February 17-March 21, 1982).
title: Stories From Storage
opening date: 2021-02-07T05:00:00
Stories From Storage. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (February 7-May 16, 2021).
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LEGACY EXHIBITIONS
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PROVENANCE
Lenore Tawney (the artist) [1907-1997]
date: 1977
footnotes:
citations:
Katharine Kuh [1904-1994]
date: 1977-82
footnotes:
citations:
The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH
date: March 8, 1982
footnotes:
citations:
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fun fact:
Lenore Tawney was a pioneering fiber artist known for large-scale public installations, but her postcard collages were personal missives to close friends on an intimate scale.
digital description:
This is one of 44 postcard collages in the CMA’s collection that the textile artist Lenore Tawney sent through the mail to her friend, the art dealer, curator, and critic Katherine Kuh between 1969 and 1981. Using natural objects and ephemera that she compiled over a lifetime, Tawney’s collages display the artist’s personal visual vocabulary and poetic response to materials. Recurring images—such as eggs, feathers, birds, baby animals, crosses, and circles—engage with universal themes such as vulnerability, resilience, infinity, and spirituality.
wall description:
Tawney created postcard collages from her vast collection of feathers, stones, eggs, shells, photographs, newspaper clippings, popular devotional images, sheet music, and antique manuscripts together with her own script and drawn designs. With frequent references to mystical writings and Eastern philosophical thought, the postcards manifest Tawney’s understanding of art as an intersection between the ineffable world (the unsaid or unknown) and the material world (the expressed or known). Presented here are some of the recurring images and themes most often found within her postcards.
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RELATED WORKS
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CITATIONS
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IMAGES