Bauhaus weaving theory : from feminine craft to mode of design

Book

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BLUE: The TATTER Textile Library

Name/Title

Bauhaus weaving theory : from feminine craft to mode of design

Entry/Object ID

TT847.5.G4.S65

Description

The Bauhaus school in Germany has long been understood through the writings of its founding director, Walter Gropius, and well-known artists who taught there such as Wassily Kandinsky and László Moholy-Nagy. Far less recognized are texts by women in the school's weaving workshop. In Bauhaus Weaving Theory, T'ai Smith uncovers new significance in the work the Bauhaus weavers did as writers. From colorful, expressionist tapestries to the invention of soundproofing and light-reflective fabric, the workshop's innovative creations influenced a modernist theory of weaving. In the first careful examination of the writings of Bauhaus weavers, including Anni Albers, Gunta Stözl, and Otti Berger, Smith details how these women challenged assumptions about the feminine nature of their craft. As they harnessed the vocabulary of other disciplines like painting, architecture, and photography, Smith argues, the weavers resisted modernist thinking about distinct media. In parsing texts about tapestries and functional textiles, the vital role these women played in debates about medium in the twentieth century and a nuanced history of the Bauhaus comes to light. Bauhaus Weaving Theory deftly reframes the Bauhaus weaving workshop as central to theoretical inquiry at the school. Putting questions of how value and legitimacy are established in the art world into dialogue with the limits of modernism, Smith confronts the belief that the crafts are manual and technical but never intellectual arts.

Lexicon

Search Terms

bauhaus, textile design--germany, textile design--history, weaving--germany, women textile designers

Legacy Lexicon

Category

Book

Book Details

Author

T’ai Smith

Publisher

University of Minnesota Press

Place Published

City

Minneapolis

State/Province

Minnesota

Country

United States of America

Continent

North America

Date Published

2014

Call No.

TT847.5.G4.S65

ISBN

816687242, 9780816687244

LCCN

2014028046

Notes

Length: 229

General Notes

Note Type

Contents

Note

Acknowledgments -- Introduction -- Pictures Made of Wool -- Toward a Modernist Theory of Weaving -- The Haptics of Optics -- Weaving as Invention -- Conclusion -- Notes -- Index.