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Connecting Threads: The Enduring Legacy of Craft in Liubov Popova’s Textile Practice

2019; Oxford University Press; Volume: 43; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1093/oxartj/kcz025

1741-7287

Rachel Vogel,

Art, Technology, and Culture

Lopsided rounded forms and uneven black rectangles alternate and repeat, patterning an embroidered book cover by Liubov Popova from 1923–4 (Fig. 1). The slightly raised tufts of pale blue and rich black sit atop a creamy grosgrain support. Wobbling, thin parallel lines fill in the negative space, each of their hundreds of individual hand stiches visible to the eye. The book cover, produced simultaneous to Popova’s work for the First State Cotton-Printing Factory in Moscow, shares the all-over geometric motif and vibrating optical effect that characterized her designs for factory-printed fabrics (Fig. 2). However, the embroidered work distinguishes itself in its free-handed approach rather than fussy, mechanical precision: the figures on the book cover vary in shape and size, nothing is perfectly symmetrical, and the central band is one-and-a-half times wider than the others, throwing off the alternating colour order. These inconsistencies create a heightened sense of instability, adding to the pulsating dynamism of the composition.