MEDIA KIT - Queensland Art Gallery

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EXHIBITION OVERVIEW • ‘Quilts 1700–1945’ from the Victoria and Albert Museum, London (V&A) is on display exclusively at the Queensland Art Gallery from June 15 until September 22, 2013. • The exhibition explores over 200 years of British patchwork and quilt-making, uncovering the personal and social histories embedded in extraordinary, hand-crafted textiles. • The exhibition includes 55 objects: 36 quilts and 19 items of associated material such as pin cushions, needlework tools and sewing baskets dating from 1690 to 1945. Elisabeth Chapman / Coverlet commemorating the Duke of Wellington detail c.1829 / Cotton / Collection: Victoria and Albert Museum, London. Given by Gwendolyn Baker in memory of her husband, Stephen Baker / © Victoria and Albert Museum, London • Drawn primarily from the collection of the V&A, the exhibition also includes select additional pieces lent by some of the UK’s finest regional museums and private collections, and showcases some of the finest surviving examples of British bed covers, wall hangings and textiles from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. • The exhibition will also feature one of the world’s most important and admired textiles, The Rajah quilt 1841, which was sewn by convict women during transportation to Van Diemen’s Land, on loan from the National Gallery of Australia. • ‘Quilts 1700-1945’ is curated by Sue Prichard, Curator of Contemporary Textiles at the V&A, and has been developed from the successful exhibition, titled ‘Quilts 1700-2010: Hidden Histories, Untold Stories’, staged at the V&A from 20 March to 4 July 2010. • A new, revised version of the publication that accompanied the V&A exhibition has been published by QAGOMA, as a soft cover book with approximately 196 pages it will include an extended essay on The Rajah quilt by Robert Bell, Senior Curator of Decorative Arts & Design, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra. • ‘Quilts 1700–1945’ is a ticketed exhibition. Tickets available via www.qagoma.qld.gov.au/quilts • Ticket costs: Adult $15, Concession $12, Member $11, Secondary students $8, Children 12 & under Free, Family (1-2 adults & children aged 13-17) $38, Season Adult $45, Season Concession $36, Season Member $33
THEMATIC SECTIONS THE DOMESTIC LANDSCAPE In 18th-century Britain, the bedrooms of the wealthy were used for the display of luxury goods. Ornamental patchwork bed hangings and quilted bedcovers reflected a household’s access to a range of fashionable textiles, from colourful imported chintzes to sumptuous silk velvets. Many were bought specially, but householders also recycled textiles from other objects, a common practice given the financial and emotional investment in valuable fabrics. Beautifully worked bed hangings and bedcovers were found in both middleclass and aristocratic households. Some were purchased from professional centres of production such as Exeter or Canterbury; others were made within the home itself. PATCHWORK BED HANGINGS 1730–50 This is the only set of chintz bed hangings from this period that survives in a public collection. They would have been created for a fashionable middling or aristocratic household. The original use of the word ‘chintz’ was for Indian cotton cloth on which a pattern was produced by hand-drawing and dyeing with mordants and resists. While there was immense enthusiasm for chintz among British consumers in the late seventeenth century, there were also many opponents to the imported Indian goods, including the weavers of wool, linen and silk. In a bid to protect British manufacturing, a law was passed in 1701 to forbid the import of dyed or printed cottons and silk from India into Britain, except for re-export. Despite this ban, the overwhelming fashion for these light, colourful textiles led the writer Daniel Defoe to comment that it had: Maker unknown / Patchwork bed hangings 1730-50 / Cotton, linen, fustian and silk / Collection: Victoria and Albert Museum, London / © Victoria and Albert Museum, London . . . crept into our houses; our closets and bedchambers, curtains, cushions, chairs and at last beds themselves were nothing but calicoes and Indian stuffs, and in short almost everything that used to be made of wool and silk. 1/4
Page 1 and 2: QUEENSLAND ART GALLERY 15 JUNE - 22
Page 3: During the opening weekend, Saturda
Page 7 and 8: VIRTUE AND VIRTUOSITY Throughout th
Page 9 and 10: CURATOR BIOGRAPHY Sue Prichard is c
Page 11 and 12: OPENING WEEKEND AND PUBLIC PROGRAMS
Page 13: VICTORIA AND ALBERT MUSEUM Establis

MEDIA KIT - Queensland Art Gallery

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