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Lenore Tawney: Mirror of the Universe

Susan Snodgrass

To cite this article: Susan Snodgrass (2020): Lenore￿Tawney:￿Mirror￿of￿the￿Universe, TEXTILE, DOI: 10.1080/14759756.2020.1749388 To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/14759756.2020.1749388

Published online: 28 Apr 2020.

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Lenore Tawney: Mirror of the Universe, John Michael Kohler Arts Center, Sheboygan, WI

Revealed throughout Mirror of the an emergent artists’ community in Universe, a suite of four exhibitions Lower Manhattan that included recently on view at the John Michael , , and Kohler Arts Center exploring the life, , the latter with whom work, and influence of Lenore Tawney Tawney would form a close and influ- (1907–2007), is an artist whose cre- ential friendship. ative and everyday lives were intim- This pivotal move sets the stage ately intertwined.1 Her expressive, for In Poetry and Silence: The Work principled art of “open-warp” weav- and Studio of Lenore Tawney,theser- ings, whereby portions of the warp ies’ central exhibition. Curated by are left visible and unwoven, was as Karen Patterson, it featured over 120 dedicated to disrupting the conven- works ranging from Tawney’searliest tions of textile art, as it was to the and sculptures to her monu- pursuit for her own inner being. mental “woven forms” to her later, An intensely private person whose intimate drawings and assemblages. early beginnings remain somewhat Anchoring this expansive survey—the enigmatic, Tawney was born in Lorain, largest devoted to the artist—was a Ohio, in 1907. She moved to Chicago recreation of Tawney’s various home- in 1927, and later studied briefly at studios, restaged here with stark the Institute of Design under the wood furniture, tidy chests of drawers, tutelage of , ceramics, and the artist’s own works Laszl o Moholy-Nagy, Emerson (Figure 1).3 Neatly displayed through- Woelffer, and Marli Ehrman. After out the environment and upon adja- extensive travels throughout Europe, cent shelves were Tawney’spersonal North Africa, and the Middle East, she collections of antique and found then studied tapestry with Martta objects, among them shoe and hat Taipale at the Penland School of forms, stones, bones, baskets of Crafts. Tawney’ssearchfor“alifeof feathers, boxes of buttons and eggs. spirit” led her to New York in 1957, While this interior realm reflects where at the age of fifty she sought the artist’s penchant for austerity and “a barer life, closer to reality, without contemplation (the poetry and silence all the things that clutter & fill our intimated by the exhibition’stitle), lives.”2 She found it at 27 Coenties Tawney was as profoundly influenced REVIEWED BY SUSAN SNODGRASS Susan Snodgrass is a Chicago-based critic and Slip, a former dockyard and home to by the external world outside her editor. She is coeditor of ARTMargins Online (www.artmargins.com), and the author of Inside the Matrix: The Radical Designs of Ken Isaacs (Half Letter Press, 2019). She is a 2018 recipient of a Creative Capital/Andy Warhol Textile, Volume 0, Issue 0, pp. 1–8 Foundation Arts Writers Grant for her blog In/ DOI: 10.1080/14759756.2020.1749388 Site: Reflections on the Art of Place, and a finalist for the 2019 Dorthea and Leo Rabkin Foundation Arts Journalist Award. # 2020 Informa UK Limited, trading as [email protected] Taylor & Francis Group Exhibition Review 3

Figure 1 Installation view of In Poetry and Silence: The Work and Studio of Lenore Tawney at the John Michael Kohler Arts Center, 2019. Photo courtesy of John Michael Kohler Arts Center.

studio. The East River, in particular, between two sheets of glass—it is works such as The Judge, Inquisition, fueled her lifelong interest in themes one of the few early open-warp weav- and Vespers (all 1961), characterized of water and nature, as well as her ings that has survived. It is also the by remarkable variations in density pioneering explorations of textile’s first time the work has been exhibited andthickness,braidedorknotted capacities for movement and light. since it was originally shown in 1961, fringes, and errant threads (Figures 3 Although Tawney began experiment- a testament to the exhibition’ssuperb and 4). The weavings’ porous compo- ing with the open-weave technique as scholarship and scope. However, it sitions seem to float in space, offering early as 1955, Shadow River from was precisely the ephemeral nature of dramatic expressions of shadow and 1957 is emblematic in this regard. Shadow River that interested Tawney light, an effect that was developed Nearly transparent with its strong ver- and gave her the freedom to exploit further in subsequent works that tical lines and curvilinear forms tra- further the tensile properties of her become more sculptural. In 1962, the versing delicate open expanses, the medium, liberating textiles from the artist designed an “open reed” that work portends the fluid structures and strictures of the rectangular format allowed her to change the shape of abstract geometry that would soon and eventually craft. theworkatitwaswovenand“to vary become the hallmark of Tawney’s The exhibition then unfolded into not just the density of her composi- practice. Given the fragility of the a stunning chronological display of tions but also their directionality.”4 piece—suspended and displayed suspended weavings (Figure 2), with With the open reed, Tawney begins to 4 Exhibition Review

Figure 2 Installation view of In Poetry and Silence: The Work and Studio of Lenore Tawney at the John Michael Kohler Arts Center, 2019. Photo courtesy of John Michael Kohler Arts Center.

create her “woven forms,” monumen- (1966) (Figure 5), both realized in achieve delicate abstract forms at a tal structures typified by a strong lin- black linen, The Bride (1962) and the grand scale in keeping with artists of ear verticality, lightweight and ethereal Lekythos (1962), incorporat- thesametimeperiodworkingin transcendent yet present and mater- ing feathers amidst natural linen Minimalism, while remaining uniquely ial. Examples include the dramatic threads. The radical nature of these her own. (The Megalithic Doorway Dark River (1962) and Shrouded River worksliesinTawney’sabilityto from 1963, on view here, measures Exhibition Review 5

Figure 3 Lenore Tawney, Vespers, 1961; linen; 82 Â 21 in. Courtesy of the Lenore G. Tawney Foundation, New York. Photo: Rich Maciejewski, 2018, courtesy of John Michael Kohler Arts Center.

Figure 4 Lenore Tawney, Vespers [detail], 1961; linen; 82 Â 21 in. Courtesy of the Lenore G. Tawney Foundation, New York. Photo: Rich Maciejewski, 2018, courtesy of John Michael Kohler Arts Center. 6 Exhibition Review

Figure 5 Lenore Tawney, Shrouded River, 1966; linen and wood; 154 Â 22 in. Collection of the Lenore G. Tawney Foundation, New York. Photo: Rich Maciejewski, courtesy of John Michael Kohler Arts Center.

204 inches in length.) Likewise, her mysticism are writ large in the Cloud soundtrack documenting a movement soft, elemental compositions antici- series, among the last of Tawney’s piece by choreographer Andy de pate post-Minimalism’smoresubject- works. The Kohler Arts Center dedi- Groat performed for a solo exhibition ive explorations of process and cated an entire gallery to Cloud of Tawney’sworkin1979. materiality. Labyrinth (1983), a room-sized instal- A grand achievement that spans Tawney infuses her later weavings lation comprised of thousands of indi- architecture, performance, and craft, (1973–1976) with spiritual evocations vidual threads falling like rain from a Cloud Labyrinth presaged the formal derived from her ongoing interest in horizontal support suspended from and conceptual lineages of Tawney’s the phenomenology of the natural the ceiling (Figure 8). At once volumet- work as explored by eight contempor- world and her dedicated practice of ric and atmospheric, this immersive ary artists in the exhibition Even Zen Buddhism and Siddha Yoga. environment is the ultimate fulfillment thread [has] a speech,curatedby These mainly monochromatic compo- of Tawney’sopen-weavetechnique; Shannon R. Stratton. This diverse sitions are realized in tightly woven abandoning wefts altogether, each showing was followed by a small yet crosslike forms (Figure 6)orrectangu- strand was meticulously knotted by illuminating exhibition of Tawney’s lar fields bearing vertical slits that fil- hand. Accompanying the work was a archives and ephemera organized by ter light (Figure 7). Nature and video projection and audio Mary Savig. Rare photographs, letters, Exhibition Review 7

Figure 6 Lenore Tawney, The Four-Petaled Flower, 1973; linen; 84 Â 84 in. Courtesy of JPMorgan Chase Art Collection, Chicago, IL. Photo courtesy of John Michael Kohler Arts Center.

Figure 7 Lenore Tawney, In Fields of Light, 1975; linen; 108 Â 100 1/2 in. Collection of the Lenore G. Tawney Foundation, New York. Photo: Rich Maciejewski, courtesy of John Michael Kohler Arts Center. 8 Exhibition Review

Figure 8 Lenore Tawney, Cloud Labyrinth, 1983; canvas and linen. Courtesy of the Lenore G. Tawney Foundation, New York. Photo courtesy of John Michael Kohler Arts Center. postcards, drawings, and excerpts March 2020); Cloud Labyrinth, Chicago: John Michael Kohler from the artist’s notebooks furthered organized by Laura Bickford (18 Arts Center in association with Tawney’s legacy as an artist of pro- August 2019–19 January 2020); The University of Chicago found innovation and influence, for Ephemeral and Eternal: The Press, 2019), p. 69. whom (un)woven thread was both Archive of Lenore Tawney, 3. Tawney’shome-studiowas creative freedom and a state of mind. curated by Mary Savig (1 acquired by the John Michael September 2019–2 February Kohler Arts Center, where it will 2020); and Even thread [has] a be preserved and on view at its Notes speech, curated by Shannon R. forthcoming Art Preserve, a Stratton (2 September 2019–2 facility that will allow the public 1. Lenore Tawney: Mirror of the February 2020). year-round access to its collection Universe included the following 2. Lenore Tawney as quoted in of artist-built environments, exhibitions: In Poetry and Glenn Adamson, “Student: opening August 2020. Silence: The Work of Lenore 1945–1960,” exhibition catalog 4. Glenn Adamson, “Sculptor: Tawney, curated by Karen Lenore Tawney: Mirror of the 1961–1970,” Lenore Tawney: Patterson (6 October 2019–7 Universe (Sheboygan and Mirror of the Universe, p. 118.