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<\/a><\/p>\nThe exhibition, Beyond Bayeux: Tapestry Now, brings together work made by Edinburgh\u2019s Dovecot Studios, exploring how artists and weavers turn paintings, drawings and digital designs into textiles. Although the title takes its cue from the Bayeux Tapestry, the exhibition focuses on tapestry\u2019s ongoing development as a modern art form.<\/p>\n
Founded in 1912, Dovecot has roots in the Arts and Crafts movement. Two weavers from William Morris\u2019s Merton Abbey workshop moved to Edinburgh to establish a studio for the 4th Marquess of Bute. The studio eventually took its name from a historic dovecot next to the purpose-built workshop.<\/p>\n
That gives the exhibition\u2019s historical foundation, but much of its interest lies in explaining the decisions involved in making a tapestry. As the exhibition explains, weavers have to study brushstrokes, accidental paint drips and changes in tone to find ways of expressing them through different fibres and combinations of coloured yarn.<\/p>\n
And what appears from a distance to be a single colour can, when you get very close, turn out to contain several yarns blended to create depth and tonal variation.<\/p>\n
One of the highlights of the show is a David Hockney commission which is based on a painting he made of a tapestry \u2013 so it\u2019s a tapestry of a painting of a tapestry. Very meta. Peter Saville\u2019s After, After, After Monarch of the Glen draws on Edwin Landseer\u2019s famous stag painting and Peter Blake\u2019s later Pop Art interpretation, before evolving those earlier versions into tapestry.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, Farshid Moussavi Architecture\u2019s The Garden Carpet uses computer-based modelling and geometric shapes to reinterpret the Persian garden carpet. Christina Kimeze\u2019s Blue Door, by contrast, presents a different challenge, which was to preserve the marks and drips of an oil painting in woven form.<\/p>\n However, the largest work on display is Hurvin Anderson\u2019s The Lincoln College Tapestry. More than five metres across, it was woven by five people over nine months for the Oxford college\u2019s 600th anniversary. The design centres on a long table, reflecting the role of dining and gathering in College life. Around it are references to Lincoln\u2019s academic, sporting and social life, including the University\u2019s four academic divisions.\u00a0 If you squint, it\u2019s also vaguely similar to the Last Supper.<\/p>\n The exhibition also connects tapestry to London\u2019s buildings, from the British Library entrance hall to Victoria Crowe\u2019s 52-square-metre commission for Leathersellers\u2019 Hall. Guildhall Art Gallery itself also owns John Piper\u2019s The Five Gates of London, woven by Dovecot in 1975.<\/p>\n As a collection, it shows the broad range of contemporary art in tapestry form, and while it\u2019s easy to stand back and look at the art as a whole, it\u2019s also worth getting up close to see the stitching and how it varies across the different hangings.<\/p>\n You might have seen contemporary tapestries in offices, as they\u2019re increasingly popular artworks for large foyers with their brightly coloured hangings, and not to forget, quite good at dampening sound.<\/p>\n The exhibition, Beyond Bayeux: Tapestry Now<\/a>, is at the Guildhall Art Gallery<\/a> until 21st March 2027 and is free to visit, with donations.<\/p>\n It\u2019s open daily from 10am to 5pm.<\/p>\n Note: The Lincoln tapestry will leave the exhibition in early March \u2013 so best to visit before the end of February to see it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It\u2019s tapestry season in London, and while the big one is historic, the Guildhall Art Gallery is also…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":815932,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[6225,6485,6486,1120,96,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-815931","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-arts-and-design","tag-arts","tag-arts-and-design","tag-artsanddesign","tag-design","tag-entertainment","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/815931","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=815931"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/815931\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/815932"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=815931"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=815931"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=815931"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n