Reading Feminism in Modern Tapestry’s Archive

Abstract

This article argues that modern tapestry’s archive reveals two lacunae in the history of modernism and addresses them through the dual practices of a feminist reading of the archives and an archival reading of feminism. The first lacuna is the role of women as not only artists but also producers of art, more broadly conceived. A feminist reading of the archive shows how women worked as “publishers,” weavers, widows, dealers, curators, and critics to produce tapestry and other forms of modern art. The second lacuna regards the role of the feminist art movement in transforming art history narratives, as feminists both recovered marginalized artistic practices and marginalized others that did not fit their political agenda. An archival reading of feminism shows how modern tapestry, as a relatively prestigious and masculine form of decorative art, would have complicated feminists’ simplification of modernism as misogynously opposed to decoration.