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* Features Indian textiles pieces from the Karun Thakar Collection, and The Textile Museum and Cotsen Textile Traces Study Collection in Washington, DC* Published to accompany an exhibition at The Textile Museum at George Washington University in Washington, DC, opening January 2022The book features items from one of the world's foremost private collections of Indian textiles, the Karun Thakar Collection, together with key pieces from two recently united American collections, The Textile Museum and the Cotsen Textile Traces Study Collection in Washington, DC. The book and accompanying exhibition offer a unique approach to understanding Indian textile culture through reference to three distin...
This dazzling array of Indian textiles from one of the world's most important and eclectic private collections contains many images never before published. Anyone interested in textiles, Indian and Asian art, interior design, or cultural history will find inspiration in this beautiful volume.
This book offers a fascinating journey through the history and culture of textiles in Africa drawn from the private collection of Karun Thakar, widely considered to be one of the best in the world. This collection of rare and exquisite textiles from Central, Northern, and West Africa includes weavings from Ghana, Nigeria, and the Ivory Coast; embroideries, veils, and haiks from Morocco and Tunisia; and raffia fabrics from Congo. Organized by region, each piece is dramatically photographed to highlight the extraordinary colors, patterns, and skill with which it was created. Drawn from a collection consisting of over 4,000 pieces, this book illustrates the most important textiles from the renowned collection. The book provides not only a thrilling sample of timeless patterns and designs but also a historical perspective that deepens our understanding of the importance of woven materials in the African tradition.
India has been at the heart of the global trade in textiles since ancient times, and cotton has been at the heart of the Subcontinent's economy for millennia. Indian dyed and painted cottons were admired in and traded to the Far East and the Mediterranean world for many generations before European interest in chintz created a new market. The trade in Indian cloth flourished due to the ability of its craftsmen to create a multitude of detailed and expressive patterns with strong and fast colors. Such textiles gained high esteem among the elite at home and abroad, ultimately acquiring heirloom status. Karun Thakar has been collecting textile art for more than 30 years, and has one of the world...
Meisen silk was produced in Japan from the late nineteenth century and became particularly popular between 1910 and 1940. Meisen was an innovative, quick and cost-effective dye and weaving method with the effect of labor-intensive and multicolored traditional kasuri ikat fabric. The meisen kimonos that were produced en masse were the first affordable ready-to-wear kimonos. Designed by a young generation of Japanese textile designers who synthesized classic Japanese design with the influence of Western design movements, the patterns still look fresh and original today and represent a little-known study in textile design of the early twentieth century. As eminent fashion garments, meisen kimonos would be replaced with the next new fashion after just a season or two. Thus many of them were stored in excellent condition and were even passed down as heirlooms. In recent years they have resurfaced and are now enjoying the high esteem bestowed on them by collectors.
"When a rich man in seventeenth-century South Asia enjoyed a peaceful night's sleep, he imagined himself enveloped in a velvet sleep. In the poetic imagination of the time, the fine dew of early evening was like a thin cotton cloth from Bengal, and woolen shawls of downy pashmina sent by the Mughal emperors to their trusted noblemen approximated the soft hand of the ruler on the vassal's shoulder. Textiles in seventeenth-century South Asia represented more than cloth to their makers and users. They simulated sensory experience, from natural, environmental conditions to intimate, personal touch. The Art of Cloth in Mughal India is the first art historical account of South Asian textiles from ...
- For the first time, social-media art-curator sensation Stephen Ellcock turns his hand to textiles and fashion - Lavishly illustrated with many previously unseen images from Karun Thakar's distinguished textile collection - Designed to appeal to anybody with an interest in art and visual culture, as well as textile experts and enthusiasts - An illuminating journey into the splendours of nature and the infinite entanglements of the human condition - Published in collaboration with Hali, the world's leading textile publisher Book of Textiles is a unique collaboration between bestselling author Stephen Ellcock and textile expert Karun Thakar. Together, they share an inspiring vision of the wor...
Traditional crafts have been an essential part of Indian history, culture and life. This handbook looks at craft as both a cultural artefact that reflects people’s worldviews, indigenous practices and traditions, as well as a source of income generation and development that is inclusive. India’s rapid development has meant a breakdown of traditional economies, and including craft production-to-consumption systems. Meanwhile, there is a call to action from different factions to protect, revive and reinvent craft, because the inherent sustainability of the systems that underpin it are essential for the sustainability of India and her people. Against this backdrop, this book examines the cu...
Recognizing philosophy’s traditional influence on—and literature’s creative stimulus for—sociopolitical discourses, imaginations, and structures, African Philosophical and Literary Possibilities: Re-readingthe Canon, edited by Aretha Phiri, probes the cross-referential, interdisciplinary relationships between African literature and African philosophy. The contributors write within the broader context of renewed interest in and concerns around epistemological decolonization and to advance African scholarly transformation . This volume argues that, in their convergent ideological and imaginative attempts to articulate an African conditionality, African philosophy and literature share o...
Published in conjunction with an exhibition held at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Sept. 16, 2013-Jan. 5, 2014.