Exhibition: “Add to, Take Away: Artistry and Innovation in African Textiles” at Dallas Museum of Art

November 8, 2014 to December 6, 2015

““Add to” and “take away” refer to basic techniques African textile artists use to decorate cloth. “Add to” techniques include embroidery and appliqué. “Take away” refers to the removal of threads from cloth to create intricate patterns. Decorated cloth is often a powerful expressive medium in African life, a kind of visual language that can be read by those familiar with it. This installation of cloths drawn primarily from the DMA’s collection explores these techniques as they have been—and still are—practiced in Mali, Republic of Benin, Nigeria, Cameroon, and Ethiopia. “Add to” and “take away” refer to basic techniques African textile artists use to decorate cloth. “Add to” techniques include embroidery and appliqué. “Take away” refers to the removal of threads from cloth to create intricate patterns. Decorated cloth is often a powerful expressive medium in African life, a kind of visual language that can be read by those familiar with it. This installation of cloths, drawn primarily from the DMA’s acclaimed collection of African art, explores these techniques as they have been—and still are—practiced in Mali, Republic of Benin, Nigeria, Cameroon, and Ethiopia. “

Captions for the photos are:

Tunic with appliquéd designs, Probably 1920s, Cameroon: Kom people, cotton and wool; commercially woven fabrics, machine and hand stitching, Dallas Museum of Art, Textile Purchase Fund;

Robe for a dignitary (boubou lomasa), Late 19th-early 20th century, Mali: Soninke people, cotton and silk; plain weave and embroidery, Dallas Museum of Art, Textile Purchase Fund;

Woman's embroidered shawl, Probably 1930s, Nigeria or Cameroon, Africa, cotton, Dallas Museum of Art, Textile Purchase Fund;

In my view the shawl is more likely to be from Ivory Coast.

Cloth of the month–a lower Niger prestige sash.

Man's prestige sash, worn over the shoulder, with the warp woven from luxury magenta silk imported to Nigeria by the Saharan caravan trade. Woven by a woman on an upright single heddle loom, the precise origin of this unusual cloth is hard to pinpoint but we can narrow it down to the lower reaches of the Niger and suggest the weaver was most likely Igbo. The neatly woven decoration is in blue, cream, green, and orange, with the same order of colours maintained across the three pattern sections. This is a very rare piece, with only one fairly similar example known (in the British Museum, # Af1956,07.35, collected by Charles Partridge before 1915.) Condition: Excellent. Measurements: 53 inches x 15, 135 cm x 38cm

The image below shows how the cloth would have been worn over the shoulder.

Below is the similar cloth collected by Charles Partridge before 1915 and now in the British Museum.

Click on the photos to enlarge. Click here to view this piece and other rare Nigerian textiles in our gallery.

“At Home in Africa” at Cleveland State University–some images.

Thanks are due to curator Kathy Curnow for generously sharing these images of the recent exhibition At Home in Africa at Cleveland State University.

“West African Prestige Robes” on Pinterest

I have added a new board “West African Prestige Robes” to my Pinterest site. More images will be upload in the coming weeks. Please do check it out by clicking here.