Textiles and Modernist Architecture: A Proximate Relation

Join distinguished art historian and curator Dr Lynne Cooke as she considers a selection of tapestries by artists including Le Corbusier, Josef Albers, Mona Hessing and Helen Frankenthaler, all collected by renowned Modernist architect Harry Seidler. Annie Albers' 'On Designing' argues for a partnership between designer and architect. Dr Cooke will continue that conversation through Seidler's collections and the relationship between textiles and Modernist architecture. While studying architecture at Harvard with Bauhaus founder Walter Gropius and champion of the Modernist movement, Marcel Breuer, Seidler spent a summer at Black Mountain College where Annie and Josef Albers were teaching. He later described this formative experience as game changing. This lecture examines what came of these relationships and the impact on textile practices and architectural modernism, asking if textiles emerge as central, rather than only decorative. Registrations required.