The Bride represents a breakthrough moment in the career of Lenore Tawney, when she created what she called "woven forms." It combines multiple weaving techniques in a work with a variable width forming an unconventional shape, a structure of the artist’s own invention. Here, she used warp-faced plain weave, warp-faced plain weave with discontinuous weft, and gauze. The widest areas of weaving at the bottom are held in place with metal rods; in the central section, ostrich feathers are inserted in the weft direction. Influenced by ancient Peruvian woven caps with human or camelid hair braids, Tawney ended the warps with braided and knotted fringes. This experimentation with the beginning or end of a weaving was characteristic of the 1960s fiber arts movement, in which Tawney was a major figure.
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Artwork Details
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Title:The Bride
Artist:Lenore Tawney (American, Lorain, Ohio 1907–2007 New York)
Date:1962
Medium:Linen, feathers, wood
Dimensions:12 ft. 2 in. × 19 3/4 in. (370.8 × 50.2 cm)
Classification:Textiles
Credit Line:Purchase, Lenore G. Tawney Foundation and Lila Acheson Wallace Gifts, 2023
Object Number:2023.643
Rights and Reproduction:Lenore G. Tawney Foundation – lenoretawney.org
the artist, New York (1962–d. 2007); Lenore G. Tawney Foundation, New York (2007–23; their partial gift and sale through Alison Jacques, London to MMA)
Art Institute of Chicago. "Woven Forms by Lenore Tawney," October 6–December 2, 1962, no catalogue.
New York. Museum of Contemporary Crafts of the American Craftsmen's Council. "Woven Forms," March 22–May 12, 1963, no. 5.
Museo de Bellas Artes de Caracas. "Formas tejidas," June 1–July 31, 1963, no. 2 (as "La Novia").
Bridgehampton, N.Y. Benson Gallery. "Lenore Tawney," 1967, no catalogue.
Philadelphia. Peale Galleries of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. "Collages, Constructions, Drawings, Objects, and Weavings by Lenore Tawney," March 19–April 15, 1970, brochure no. 19 (listed for sale).
Art Gallery, California State University, Fullerton. "Lenore Tawney: An Exhibition of Weaving, Collage, Assemblage," November 14–December 11, 1975, no. 5.
Art Institute of Chicago. "Lenore Tawney: A Retrospective," July 26–October 28, 1990, no cat. no. (p. 24).
Baltimore. Maryland Institute College of Art. "Lenore Tawney: Fiber, Collage, Assemblage," November 13–December 13, 1992, no catalogue.
Sheboygan, Wisc. John Michael Kohler Arts Center. "In Poetry and Silence: The Work and Studio of Lenore Tawney," October 6, 2019–March 7, 2020, checklist no. 18 (lent by the Collection of the Lenore G. Tawney Foundation, New York).
Tarrytown, N.Y. David Rockefeller Creative Arts Center, The Pocantico Center. "Inspired Encounters: Women Artists and the Legacies of Modern Art," September 30, 2022–July 29, 2023, unnumbered cat. (figs. 2–3; lent by the Lenore G. Tawney Foundation, New York).
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Weaving Abstraction in Ancient and Modern Art," March 4–June 16, 2024, unnumbered cat. (fig. 42; published in MMA Bulletin 81, Fall 2023).
"In the Studio of Lenore Tawney." Handweaver and Craftsman 16 (Spring 1965), p. 35, ill. (in artist's studio).
James Schuyler. "Lenore Tawney." Craft Horizons 27 (November/December 1967), ill. p. 21 (installation photo, Exh. Bridgehampton 1967).
Mildred Constantine and Jack Lenor Larsen. Beyond Craft: The Art Fabric. New York, 1973, pp. 48, 271, ill. (installation photo, Exh. Bridgehampton 1967).
Bernard Kester. "Lenore Tawney: Retrospective." Artweek 6 (December 6, 1975), p. 24.
Charlotte Streifer Rubinstein. American Women Artists from Early Indian Times to the Present. Boston, 1982, p. 372, calls it "Bride".
Kathleen Nugent Mangan inLenore Tawney: A Retrospective. Exh. cat., American Craft Museum. New York, 1990, p. 24, ill. p. 155 (installation photo, Exh. Bridgehampton 1967).
Whitney Chadwick. "When Is a Grid Not a Grid? A Tale of Two Works and Multiple Histories." Contemporary Feminist Studies and its Relation to Art History and Visual Studies: Proceedings from a Conference in Gothenburg, March 28–29, 2007. Ed. Bia Mankell and Alexandra Reiff. Gothenburg, 2010, p. 26.
Suzanne Hudson. Agnes Martin: Night Sea. London, 2016, pp. 38, 89 n. 106, states that Agnes Martin titled this work.
Glenn Adamson inLenore Tawney: Mirror of the Universe. Ed. Karen Patterson. Exh. cat., John Michael Kohler Arts Center. Sheboygan, Wisc., 2019, p. 119, ill. pp. 105, 107, 145, 248 (color, overall and details).
Florica Zaharia inLenore Tawney: Mirror of the Universe. Exh. cat., John Michael Kohler Arts Center. Sheboygan, Wisc., 2019, pp. 170–71, ill. (color, overall and detail).
Karen Patterson inLenore Tawney: Mirror of the Universe. Exh. cat., John Michael Kohler Arts Center. Sheboygan, Wisc., 2019, ill. p. 24 (color detail).
Christina Bryan Rosenberger. "Devotion and Solitude." Art in America 108 (May 2020), pp. 59, 61 n. 9, ill. (color).
Mona Schieren. "Charlotte Selver's Sensory Awareness in the Work of Lenore Tawney." Atem / Breath. Gestalterische, ökologische und soziale Dimensionen / Morphological, Ecological and Social Dimensions. Ed. Linn Burchert and Iva Rešetar. Berlin, 2022, pp. 141, 143, fig. 2 (color).
Iria Candela. "Abstraction and Andean Textiles, from Anni Albers to the Fiber Arts Movement." Weaving Abstraction in Ancient and Modern Art: The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin 81 (Fall 2023), p. 39, fig. 42 (color).
Katrina London and Jeremiah William McCarthy. Inspired Encounters: Women Artists and the Legacies of Modern Art. Exh. cat., David Rockefeller Creative Arts Center, The Pocantico Center, Tarrytown, N.Y. Brooklyn, 2023, pp. 136, 187, figs. 2–3 (color, detail and overall) and ill. pp. 202, 207 (color, installation photo, Exh. Tarrytown 2022–23).
Glenn Adamson. "2024 Was the Year of the Art World's High Fiber Diet." artnews.com. December 12, 2024.
Jennifer Higgie. The Other Side: A Story of Women in Art and the Spirit World. 2024, p. 249.
K. L. H. Wells. "Looming Large: Presentations of Textile Art in Washington, DC; New York; and Chicago." Artforum 63 (September 2024), p. 142, ill. (color).
Julie Schneider. "In 'Weaving Abstraction', Textiles Travel Through Space and Time." hyperallergic.com. May 15, 2024, ill. (color, installation photo, Exh. New York 2024).
Marianela D'Aprile. "Behind Closed Doors." New York Review of Architecture no. 41 (July/August 2024), p. 25.
Mona Schieren. Agnes Martin – Transcultural Translations: On the Construction of Asianist Aesthetics in American Art after 1945. Bielefeld, 2025, p. 226.
Stanley Whitney (American, born Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 1946)
2017
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