Textiles Take the Spotlight at Smithsonian American Art Museum

Apparently, it’s textile season in the museum world. The medium is the subject of spring and summer exhibitions countrywide, from New York (MoMA PS 1) and Massachusetts (MIT List Visual Arts Center) to Texas (Blanton Museum of Art). Washington is in on the action, too, with Smithsonian American Art Museum mounting two such shows: “Pattern and Paradox: The Quilts of Amish Women,” which will be on view from May 31 to January 5, 2025, and “Subversive, Skilled, Sublime: Fiber Art by Women,” which will be on view until August 26.

Stephanie Stebich, the Margaret and Terry Stent director of SAAM and Renwick Gallery, explains that, “They’re an opportunity to tell a broader story of fiber art as a powerful medium that women have continuously embraced, adapted, and reinvented, and for us to elevate both the contributions of female artists and less examined creative practices.” “Pattern and Paradox” does so via 50 works made between 1880 and 1950 that underscore how quilting for the Amish was an aesthetic endeavor merging cultural and individual expression. “Subversive” features 33 more-recent pieces, by the likes of Sheila Hicks and Faith Ringgold, who mastered, then disrupted everyday fibers into dramatic modern art.