Current and upcoming exhibitions, events
and professional opportunities
For DAS events, go to: https://www.decartssociety.org/upcoming-programs.
Exhibitions
Bolts of Color: Printed Textiles after WWII
St. Louis Art Museum
St. Louis, MO
www.slam.org
Through May 25, 2025
Bolts of Color highlights recent acquisitions of post-WWII textiles, all made during the height of the experimental screenprinting era of the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s. Featuring works by established artists like Rockwell Kent and Lucio Fontana and trailblazing designers like Althea McNish and Joel Robinson, the exhibition considers the role of the textile industry in whetting the public’s appetite for contemporary art.
From the late 1940s, textile designers explored abstraction from a number of vantage points. Responding to contemporary art, architecture and science, painterly interpretations of nature and playful tessellations dominated textile patterns for nearly two decades. In the 1960s, huge, graphic designs influenced by Pop and Op Art movements reigned. Advances in screen printing allowed designers to create patterned fabrics with depth of color, texture and precision, whether hand-printed in small studios or mass-manufactured.
Patterns of Luxury: Islamic Textiles, 11th–17th Centuries
St. Louis Art Museum
St. Louis, MO
www.slam.org
June 13, 2025–January 4, 2026
In one of a rotating series of exhibitions featuring fabrics from the museum archives, these examples came to St. Louis from Egypt in the Fatimid and Ottoman periods, Islamic Spain, Ottoman Turkey, Persia in the Safavid dynasty, and India during the Mughal period.
Excellence in Fiber: IX
Pacific Northwest Quilt & Fiber Arts Museum
La Conner, WA
www.qfamuseum.org
Through June 1, 2025
This international exhibition features diverse contemporary fiber art. It is the Ninth International Exhibition curated by Fiber Art Now magazine to showcase fiber and textiles from a growing global art community and originally appeared in the winter 2024 issue of the magazine. The 14 featured artists represent installations, sculptures, vessels, wall/floor works and wearable art.
Works on display explore nature and human psychology, and represent the new centrality of unconventional media in the global art scene.
Events
The DAS presented its awards and prize for 2023 publications in the decorative arts on November 12 in New York City. Details are in the fall 2024 newsletter.
Opportunities
Let the DAS know of employment openings, grants and related opportunities in the decorative arts. Send such information to newsletter@DecArtsSociety.org for publication here or in our newsletter, as appropriate.
Decorative Arts Society (DAS) Award Submissions Now Open
Submissions are open for the Robert C. Smith Award and Charles F. Montgomery Prize and Award of the Decorative Arts Society (DAS).
The Robert C. Smith Award recognizes the best journal article or essay from an exhibition catalogue or book published on the decorative arts in the previous year. For recognition this year, the article or essay must be in English and have been published for the first time in 2024. Both debut and seasoned authors are welcome to submit for the award. This award is in memory of Dr. Robert C. Smith, who taught the art and architecture of the United States, Spain, Portugal and South America at the University of Pennsylvania. The award follows in the tradition he established for clearly presented, original and innovative research.
The DAS presents the Charles F. Montgomery Award to the scholar(s) whose first major publication in the field of American decorative arts is judged to be the most outstanding work published in the previous year. The Charles F. Montgomery Prize is given to the most distinguished contribution to the study of American decorative arts published in the English language by a North American scholar(s) in the previous year. These awards are in memory of Charles F. Montgomery, who was a director of the Winterthur Museum, Library and Garden; curator of the Garvan and related collections at the Yale University Art Gallery; and a professor of the history of art at Yale University — an inspirational teacher, creative curator and eminent scholar.
The closing date for submissions for works published in 2024 is June 1, 2025. Recipients will be announced in November 2025.
For further details about submitting works published in 2024 for the Montgomery Prize and Award, contact Remi Dyll, committee chair, at rdyll@mfah.org.
For Smith Award submission information, contact Ann Glasscock, committee chair, at aglasscock@taftmuseum.org.
Exhibitions
These events close between issues of the DAS newsletter and are listed by closing dates.
To confirm whether exhibitions will be held as scheduled or for access to virtual versions, check the websites of museums and galleries before planning to visit in person.
Recent special invitations for DAS contributors
• In May 2023, DAS contributors were invited to an online presentation about Multiple Affinities: Art Botany in British Design Reform: 1835–1870 by Sarah Alford, assistant professor in craft history and theory at the Alberta University of the Arts (Canada). The program was presented by the Canadian Society of Decorative Arts/Cercle canadien des arts décoratifs (CSDA).
The program was part of the CSDA Sundays: The Expert Series — Multiple Affinities: Art Botany.
• In January 2023, DAS contributors received a special invitation to join The Antique in Print: The Classical Past and the Visual Arts in the Long 18th Century, a free online lecture hosted by the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum (New York, NY). Dr. Adriano Aymonino explored how the print culture of the “long 18th century” shaped the visual and allegorical language of Neoclassicism and placed Michel Angelo Pergolesi’s drawings and prints (Designs for Various Ornaments, 1777–1801) in context. Dr. Julia Siemon, curator of the Cooper Hewitt’s Mr. Pergolesi’s Curious Things: Ornament in 18th Century Britain, provided a brief overview of the exhibition.
• Contributors to the DAS were invited to explore the history and legacy of the Gorham Manufacturing Company by viewing the premiere of Chasing Silver: The Story of Gorham, a three-part documentary series from Rhode Island PBS Original (WSBE). The series aired in May 2021.
For more about the series, go to:
https://www.ripbs.org/blogs/bird-wire/chasing-silver-the-story-of-gorham/
Use this link for a livestream after each broadcast:
watch.ripbs.org/livestream or http://bit.ly/ChasingSilverVOD
• The DAS appreciates recent invitations from the UK Decorative Arts Society for our contributors to benefit from several online presentations:
√ Sarah Nichols presented “Glass: Venice, Venini and America.” She organized an exhibition about the relationship between Murano and America when she was chief curator and curator of decorative arts at the Carnegie Museum of Art (Pittsburgh, PA).
√ Matthew Winterbottom, curator of decorative arts and sculpture at the Ashmolean Museum (Oxford, UK), presented “The Colour Revolution: Art, Design, and Fashion in Victorian Britain.”
• Caitlin Condell, associate curator and head of the Department of Drawings, Prints and Graphic Design at Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum (New York, NY), and DAS former Program chair Emily M. Orr, assistant curator of modern and contemporary American design at Cooper Hewitt, presented “Underground Modernist: E. McKnight Kauffer.”
Known as the “poster king,” Kauffer was a pioneer of commercial art who integrated avant-garde style into modern life. While living in England between the two World Wars, Kauffer produced radical posters; a wide range of book covers, rugs, theatrical productions; and more. He continued his work in New York from 1940 until his death in 1954. The lecture provided a behind-the-scenes look at a newly released monograph and forthcoming exhibition at the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum surveying Kauffer’s work.
