Quilts and the Modern Movement

Joan Crawford in Letty Lynton, 1932.

Dress by Adrian. 

Movie set and costume design introduced modern emphasis

 on line, shape and contrast into American taste.

Adrian's dresses often included flat geometric shapes.

Modern is a strange word in that it means both current and past at the same time. Modernism was an early 20th century art movement---modern is up-to-date.

Carol Gilham Jones, Free Form Circles, 2008

Simple geometrics repeated---a hallmark of Modernism

The most up-to-date thing in quilts today is the Modern Quilt. Yet we can look at the trend as a reflection of the past---a movement that has roots in the early 19th century when the "modern era" began---the years of the industrial revolution and political rebellion against traditional religion and monarchic states.

Rain, Steam & Speed: The Great Western Railway, 1844

by J.M.W. Turner (1775-1851)

New attitudes about art accompanied new concepts in science and philosophy. Artists who had used tools of line, shape and color to imitate nature now saw line, shape and color as valuable in themselves. J.M.W. Turner's 1844 painting above abstracted the new railroads into rain, steam, speed, color and line.

Cocktail by Gerald Murphy, 1927

Oil painting

The modern art movement in the early 20th century emphasized shape and flat planes of color.

Elektrische Prismen, by Sonia Delaunay, 1914

Oil Painting

European designers like Anni Fleschman Albers and Sonia Delaunay adapted modern design to textiles.

Weaving by Anni Albers, 1926
Modernists looked to folk arts like stencilled decorations and folk weavings for inspiration. Folk art and ethnic arts took on new value as artists imitated their use of color and abstraction.

Detail of a log cabin quilt, about 1880

Chinese Coins, about 1900

We can imagine how fresh these 19th-century American quilts must have looked to people who grew up in the visual clutter of the Victorian era.

Patchwork 1908

Reel quilt, about 1850

Mennonite sawtooth medallion, about 1900

Detail pieced floral about 1850

It's easy to find parallels between 20th century modern art and 19th century quilts, but it isn't coincidence. Modern artists found much inspiration in folk arts.

Find inspiration in Anni Albers weavings at the Albers Foundation:

http://www.albersfoundation.org/Albers.php?inc=Galleries&i=A_1

Read more about Sonia Delaunay's textiles at the Textile Blog

http://thetextileblog.blogspot.com/2008/11/sonia-delaunay-textile-designer.html

Read more about modern quilts in my February post:

http://siputflash.blogspot.com/2010/02/modern-quilts-style-change-and-ditsies.html

Fleamarket Fancy by Denyse Schmidt

About 2005