Easel Tapestries: The American Reception of the Marie Cuttoli Tapestries 1930s to 1950s

Abstract

The story of textiles in mid-century America was enriched by differing opinions about their multi-dimensional role as objects of art, design, and handcraft, and by the revival of pictorial tapestry, especially French imports. This paper examines the Cuttoli Tapestry edition of French-produced tapestries, named after its éditeur, Marie Cuttoli (1879–1973), and explores how these tapestries emerged as a middle ground between painting, mural, and textile, bringing to the forefront recurring tensions between fine and applied art hierarchies, third-party producers, and the concept of reproduction. While these pictorial tapestries, which varied in size from medium to large scale, functioned much as easel paintings did, earning the name “easel tapestries,” they were decidedly different from easel paintings due to the materials, production processes, and resemblances to the original design. The Cuttoli project gave artists the opportunity to explore alternatives to painting and to reach new patrons and methods of display; through the marketing of limited editions, the tapestries remained luxury art objects, although never as celebrated or expensive as “the original.” This paper documents the complicated chronology and provenance of a seminal twentieth-century pictorial tapestry project by exploring how the Cuttoli Tapestries were perceived and understood by critics and patrons during their debut and subsequent display in pre- and postwar America.

Keywords:

• Tapestry
• Marie Cuttoli
• textile reproduction
• pictorial tapestry
• weaving
• Bauhaus
• School of Paris
• Anni Albers

Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank the curators and archivists who assisted with locating files, images, and materials: San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; Centre Pompidou; Museum of Modern Art New York; the Morgan Library and Museum; the Barnes Foundation; the Corbusier Foundation; and the Rockefeller Archives. Thanks are due to K. Wells and Barbara Caen for reading an earlier draft of this paper, which was presented at the 2013 College Art Association Conference, and to the anonymous reviewers who reviewed later drafts. The author thanks Berry College for course releases and travel grants.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Virginia Gardner Troy

Virginia Gardner Troy is an art historian who examines twentieth-century textiles in terms of their visual, technical, and contextual significance. She is interested in twentieth-century designers who collected and admired non-Western and ancient textiles. She has authored two books, The Modernist Textile: Europe and America 1890‒1940 (2006), and Anni Albers and Ancient American Textiles: From Bauhaus to Black Mountain (2002), recently translated into Japanese, and articles on Appalachian weaving, weaving during the Cold War, Bauhaus textiles, Marie Cuttoli and pictorial tapestry, and the textile work of Futurist artist Fortunato Depero. She has curated exhibitions of textiles. Dr Troy has been awarded fellowships at the Wolfsonian Museum, the Aspen Institute, and the Hambidge Center for Creative Arts. Dr Troy has a BA in art education from Western Washington University, an MA in art history from the University of Washington, and a doctorate in art history from Emory University specializing in early twentieth-century art and Pre-Columbian art. She is Associate Professor of Art History at Berry College in Georgia.

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