Description
Exhibition catalogue for Unbound at Two Temple Place in 2020.
Unbound: Visionary Women Collecting Textiles celebrated seven pioneering women who saw beyond the purely functional, to reveal the extraordinary artistic, social and cultural importance of textiles. From the exquisite anthropological collections of traditional Balkan costume by Edith Durham, to the ground-breaking contemporary South Asian collection of Nima Poovaya-Smith, these women defied the ‘traditional’ concept of collecting – an activity still more often associated with men – and forged the way for textiles as crucial documents of social history as well as works of art in their own right.
This major collaborative project explored the innovative approaches of Edith Durham (1863 –1944), Louisa Pesel (1870 – 1947), Olive Matthews (1887 – 1979), Muriel Rose (1897 – 1986), Enid Marx (1902 – 1998), Jennifer Harris (working 1982-2016 at the Whitworth, University of Manchester) and Nima Poovaya-Smith (Senior Keeper International Arts 1985-1998, Cartwright Hall Art Gallery, Bradford), and presented the objects from a previously unexplored perspective: that of the female collector, rather than exclusively as the maker.
Unbound was created in partnership with seven museums and galleries: Bankfield Museum, Halifax; Cartwright Hall Art Gallery, Bradford; Chertsey Museum; Compton Verney; Crafts Study Centre, Farnham; the Leeds University Library Special Collections and Galleries and the Whitworth, University of Manchester.
The exhibition was curated by leading textiles expert June Hill and emerging curator Lotte Crawford, with support from modern craft curator and writer Amanda Game and Jennifer Hallam, an arts policy specialist.
Published by Two Temple Place.
