The Family (In Memory of a Summer in the White Mountains)
1917
Marguerite Zorach
Marguerite Zorach (American, 1887–1968)
Textiles
The Family (In Memory of a Summer in the White Mountains), 1917. Marguerite Zorach (American, 1887–1968). Plain weave silk; wool embroidery; object: 86.4 x 72.4 cm (34 x 28 1/2 in.); framed: 90.2 x 77.5 cm (35 1/2 x 30 1/2 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Edwin R. and Harriet Pelton Perkins Memorial Fund 2020.261 Marguerite Zorach conceived and executed her embroideries as major aesthetic statements at a time when the medium was routinely considered “craft,” as opposed to “fine art,” thereby erasing such distinctions. One of her most acclaimed works, The Family is a celebration of domesticity in harmony with nature, presenting the artist, her husband, and their son with an evergreen tree and four pairs of animals. Painstaking and time-consuming to make, Zorach’s embroideries are extremely rare, numbering fewer than 20 examples.
- Maker/Artist
- Zorach, Marguerite Thompson
- Classification
- Embroidery
- Formatted Medium
- plain weave silk; wool embroidery
- Medium
- plain, weave, silk, wool, embroidery
- Dimensions
- object: 86.4 x 72.4 cm (34 x 28 1/2 in.); Framed: 90.2 x 77.5 cm (35 1/2 x 30 1/2 in.)
- Inscribed
- Inscription: THE FAMILY / DONE BY MARGUERITE ZORACH IN THE YEAR NINETEEN HUNDRED AND SEVENTEEN IN MEMORY OF A SUMMER IN THE WHITE MOUNTAINS Remark: The embroidered inscription is located on the outside border of the large centrally placed roundel on the front of the textile. It is an elaborate inscription recounting details of the embroidery’s inspiration and creation along with the artist's name and the date it was made.
- Departments
- Textiles
- Accession Number
- 2020.261
- Credit Line
- Edwin R. and Harriet Pelton Perkins Memorial Fund
- Rights Statement
- CC0
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