Signed Tapestries (part 1): Artist-Designers

Whilst researching the 1950s at Dovecot, under the Directorship of Harry Jefferson Barnes and John Noble, I came across correspondence relating to the inclusion of an artist-designer's signature in a tapestry. The artist in question was Nadia Benois. On 5 November 1955 Benois wrote to Sax Shaw (Dovecot's Artistic Director) enclosing a copy of her signature. The studio was weaving a tapestry to one of her designs, Night and Day, and she expected her signature to be included on the front.

Just a few months earlier, on 7 August, Director John Noble had written the following to Shaw about Benois' tapestry:

I am entirely in favour of tapestries being marked to show designers and weavers. It is an old tradition and a good one, interesting for posterity. But I am not sure about the wisdom of signing them on the front. I feel that it suggests 'wool pictures' rather than tapestry and that the signature is apt to get in the way of the design to a much greater extent that it does in the painting.

These letters, found in the private archive of the Shaw family, illustrates that there was no 'correct' way of incorporating an artist's signature into a tapestry design - it was constantly up for debate. I thought it would be a good idea, therefore, to survey some examples from Dovecot's history and explore the debate from 1945 to the present day.

Detail from Marine Still Life, 1949, designed by Edward Wadsworth, woven by Richard Gordon, Dovecot Studios. Private Collection.

Detail of black and white photograph of Three Figures, 1950, weavers and location unknown.

After the Second World War, the Directors of Dovecot (then called the Edinburgh Tapestry Company), decided to invite famous contemporary artists to submit designs to the studio; the Directors then selected a number of them to be woven. The Directors (all members of the Bute family) were inspired by activities in France but also encouraged by the Council of Industrial Design. It was believed that collaborating with such artists would revitalise tapestry weaving, boost its profile and make the works easier to exhibit and sell. The name of the artist was an essential part of the marketing of the tapestries.

When Noble and Barnes became Directors in 1954 they decided to move away from using external artists as tapestry designers. Instead, they employed Sax Shaw as an in-house Artistic Director and tapestry designer. It was hoped that this change would save money (from artist fees) and make the tapestries more salable in a world that was increasingly aware of 'design' in the home. However, Shaw continued to include signatures on the tapestries he designed and, of course, in the Benois tapestry discussed above.

Detail of Still Life, 1950s, designed by Sax Shaw, weaver unknown. Private Collection.

Detail of Theseus and the Minotaur, 1956, designed by Sax Shaw, weavers unknown. Private Collection

The practice of including a tapestry designer's signature has continued to the present day. However it is not a consistent feature of tapestries at Dovecot. From the 1960s onwards signatures have only been included where necessary (e.g. if the artist or patron insists) or if it is able to fit comfortable within the design. Here are a couple of examples:

Aberdeen '64, 1964, designed by Archie Brennan, woven by Archie Brennan, Douglas Grierson, Maureen Hodge and Fred Mann. Aberdeen Art Gallery & Museums Collection.

Detail of Olive Terrace, 2009, designed by Barbara Rae, woven by Douglas Grierson, Naomi Robertson and Jonathan Cleaver. Private Collection.

There are some obvious examples of tapestries that have no appropriate space for a signature. This is especially the case when the tapestry is not meant as a simple wall hanging:

Tapestry woven for quick, slow, 2010 by Claire Barclay, woven by David Cochrane. Arts Council Collection.

Tapestry Circles and Green, 2011, David Poston, Bangle of welded stainless steel wire, tapestry woven cottons.Collaborative piece with Dovecot Studios, Edinburgh Jonathan Cleaver.

So far in this discussion of signatures the weavers have been absent. The second installment of this blog 'Signed Tapestries (part 2): Weavers' will examine Dovecot's inclusion of weavers' initials. Here's a taster of what's to come:

Pairings Conference: Day 2

Day two was just as jam-packed with fascinating papers so I have picked out some of the highlights.

I was captivated by Sharon Blakey (MMU) and Liz Mitchell's (MAG) presentation on their collaborative work on the Mary Greg collection at Manchester Art Gallery for their project Mary, Mary Quite Contrary. Mary Greg donated her collection of 'heirlooms and handicrafts' to the gallery in 1922 where it has remained in storage for decades, uncatalogued and unloved. The collection consists of everyday objects and paraphernalia from Greg's life and represents the society in which she lived. Inspired by John Ruskin, she intended the collection to be of benefit to the public, especially the working classes. Their progress has been charted on their fabulous blog.

On day 1 a number of us had been discussing the pros and cons of blogs. As you can tell, I quite enjoy mine and many of the teachers had made blogging part of the curriculum for their students. But what also became clear was the number of teachers/makers who did not use it, for a number of reasons: it interrupted their train of thought, they did not want to share ideas before they had time to germinate, a fear of plagiarism and a feeling that they already wrote enough about their work. The pairings project at MMU had originally had a blog for all participants to communicate with, but it proved to be unsuccessful to its technicalities and the feeling from participants that it was an unnecessary addition to the communication they were already having with their partners (by email, phone or face to face). In the case of the Mary Greg collection, however, it was a really successful way to introduce the public to live research and allow them to view images of the objects.

Avni Varia and Cindy Gould spoke on the Savarkundla Project, in the Gujarat region of India. The project teaches local women how to create textile pieces which they can then sell, creating a sustainable economic future for them and their families.

The inter-cultural theme was continued with a presentation by the founders of the HAT Project, Jeremy Theophilus and Barney Hare Duke.

The day was finished by an early-evening performance by sampler-cultureclash. Consisting of a collective of DJs, embroiderers, sound artists, textile designers and many more, they come together to explore the relationship between sound and textiles, using the common theme of the 'sampler' as a starting point. One of the performers had sensors attached to her finger and embroidery frame whilst she was sewing, one of the many sounds added to the DJ's samples as the music developed. It was an enveloping and absorbing performance.

So, what does all this have to do with tapestry? What became evident during the conference is that many practitioners encounter the same themes and issue which I have encountered during my research into Dovecot Studios: the challenges and benefits for interdisciplinary collaboration, the issue of receiving credit for your work and skill and the importance of thinking as well as doing. For me, the conference was especially valuable as an opportunity to spend time with people for whom 'process' is a major part of their work and research. In an art history department, such as Edinburgh, it is all too easy to become fixated on the object without a thorough investigation of the processes involved in its making. Two days with 50 makers is enough to persuade you otherwise.

Pairings Conference: Day 1

Please forgive the length of this post! The pairings conference at MMU was a brilliant experience and I have tried my best here to not only give my thoughts on a selection of the presentations, but also bring up some of the issues regarding collaboration which we discussed outside the lecture theatre.

The key note speech on day one was delivered by Dr Alke Groppel-Wegener of Staffordshire University. Alke had been invited to be the 'biographer' of the Pairings project. The project was formed to 'pair up' practitioners across disciplines, from both within and outside Manchester School of Art; having aimed for 6-8 pairs, they eventually had 18 on their hands! The only deadline was an exhibition to be held in the gallery of MMU Special Collections, with the intention that the exhibition should be process-based rather than object-based. The finished exhibition, however, resulted in the opposite which shows just how much practitioners, however interested in process, as driven towards a finished, tangible result.

 

Dr Johnson's Garret, copyright Jason Cleverly

Jason Cleverly, of University College Falmouth, gave a hilarious presentation about a recent project he carried out for the Dr Johnson's House in London. Rather than writing about it here, click here for a link to the project's website.

On a similar vein to the Pairings Project, staff and students at the University of the West of England had developed the Project Dialogue. Barbara Hawkins gave a thought-provoking presentation on the project's aim to experiment with breaking boundaries between the art, design and science. I was particularly interested in her point about the humanities' uses of science: rather than going to science directly for  resources, we bypass them and instead refer to social commentators on science.

The conference was interspersed with sessions run by the MAP Consortium designed to get us thinking about the theme of collaboration. Interventions of this type might not be everyone's cup of tea but for me they really added to the dynamic of the conference and encouraged me to think through the themes discussed in the papers. During the break periods MAP had set up a number of activities for delegates to do. My favourite was a pair of chairs in a square for people to arrange in a form which they felt represented collaboration. Mine was pretty straight-forward:

Glen Adamson and Alice Kettle's was rather more active:

Mr Hippo, of Uganda

In the afternoon we were put into threes by the selection of toy animals (picked a hippo) and in groups continued to study the theme of collaborative research and practice. One issue which concerned us was 'credit' - who takes credit for the research? This issue came up during the questions after my paper - people were interested to know if the weavers were always credited for the tapestries they wove. Today, the weavers' names are always recorded and their initials woven into the tapestry, however this wasn't always the case and for the majority of tapestries woven at Dovecot we have no record of their weavers. Outsourcing is a hot topic at the moment and we discussed projects where people had been paid for their skills but not noted when the finished product was unveiled - who is 'in the wrong'? For me, it is a matter of respect to thank and note the people who have helped you in your work - perhaps I'm being picky about manners but even if you have paid someone for their service, acknowledging their efforts is part of thanking them and is also necessary to remain honest about the work you are showing.

Elizabeth Blackadder

This summer a major retrospective of the work of Elizabeth Blackadder will be shown at the National Galleries of Scotland (information here). Dovecot has collaborated with Blackadder on over 30 tapestries spanning 5 centuries; such a productive relationship has come about predominantly due to the level of freedom granted by Blackadder when it comes to the interpretation of her designs. The length of the studio's relationship with such a renowned artist means that the tapestries have witnessed a huge part of Dovecot's history, from the directorship of Archie Brennan, to the workshop's new home in Infirmary Street Baths.

Scale has changed according to commission. One of the largest tapestries woven was in 2004 for the P&O Cruise ship, Arcadia. East West Still Life was over 2m in length and 75cm tall. The design was a collage of painted elements, which Blackadder moved around the composition with weaver Douglas Grierson until a final, coherent design was achieved. The light colour palette of the tapestry is well-suited to a cruise ship and the different textures within the design give the viewer the opportunity to witness the weavers' dexterous handling of colour.

The delicacy of Blackadder's floral painting has also been used to great effect in miniature tapestries: finely woven with precise detailing.

For me, the exhibition in August in the RSA galleries on the Mound will be another opportunity to view one of Blackadder's first tapestries, woven for the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art in 1967/8. This abstract design is full of clever and extremely challenging pieces of weaving, created by weaver Maureen Hodge. The tapestry is a reflection of the three-dimensional tools which Hodge applied, and still does apply, to her own work outside the studio. Double-weaving, extra warps and diagonal lines make the tapestry well worth seeing, and I would recommend everyone to do so when it is on display.

Cardiff

My recent tapestry road trip finished with a day at the Graham and Kathleen Sutherland Archive at National Museum Wales, Cardiff. The archive was a rich source of Graham Sutherland tapestry designs and I was helped by their AHRC Collaborative Doctoral Award student Rachel Flynn, who is studying the archives. It was such a good opportunity to chat with someone who is interested in the same research area, and also a chance to share our experiences of the AHRC CDA process.

Buried in the archive was an intriguing note written by Sutherland. It had originally been archived with correspondence relating to Sutherland's design for the Coventry Cathedral tapestry, but we were able to re-date it to the 1970s. In it, Sutherland gives Fred Mann, Master Weaver at Dovecot Studios, very specific information about the colours used in his design for Form Against Leaves, woven in 1976. In it he writes:
'The question of tone or value (weight) of tone. It is important that not only should the colour be rights but that the weight of tone, one next to another, should be very exact.'
As far as I am aware, it is the only piece of existing correspondence in which Sutherland gave instructions to Dovecot's weavers regarding their interpretation of the tapestry.

Unfortunately, I do not have a good image of the tapestry, but here is a snapshot of a transparency:

Oxford

Next stop on my recent trip was Oxford. I had arranged to go and see a set of tapestries at St Catherine's College, with my parents in tow. They were designed by Tom Philips and woven by Dovecot in 1979-1980. There are six tapestries in total, featuring Latin quotations and emblematic depictions of wheels, references to the way in which St Catherine was martyred. The tapestries were commissioned for the dining hall in which they are situated. As with the tapestries I saw in Coventry, these are site specific. As well as being decorative, they perform an acoustic function in a room which has bare brick walls.

St Catherine's College, Oxford

I am always drawn to works of art featuring text, no matter what the medium. Perhaps this has intensified since meeting my partner, a graphic designer with a special interest in fonts. The style of lettering in the tapestries is immensely complex: different coloured letters overlapping each other.

We also had a look around the newly renovated Ashmolean Museum. The newly designed galleries are beautiful, although some cases are so crammed with items it is difficult to take it all in. The world-wide collection of textiles was fascinating and it was lovely to see so many textiles on display in one institution. I was particularly attracted to a tapestry fragment from Egypt, AD 600-700.


Tapestry Fragment, Egypt, Akhmim, AD 600-700



Coventry

The benefit of studying an area which includes works located in the UK is the opportunity to provide study trips with family visits. In the past week, I have not only viewed a number of beautiful tapestries, I have caught up with friends and relatives far and wide.

My first stop was Coventry - not only did I have an appointment to see a recently discovered Dovecot tapestry, I also wanted to see Coventry Cathedral and the immense tapestry designed by Graham Sutherland and woven in France. The Sutherland tapestry has a history with Dovecot: it was originally hoped that it would be woven in the UK at Dovecot's Edinburgh workshop, but the commission eventually went to the Pinton Freres in France. It is a long and convoluted drama best kept for another time!

Coventry Cathedral, designed by Basil Spence, view of the altar, incuding Christ in Majesty (designed by Graham Sutherland and woven by Pinton Freres, France)

The Cathedral was breathtakingly beautiful, both the ruins of the bombed building and Basil Spence's 1960s design. The new cathedral epitomises the concept of combining architecture and design. Everything in the cathedral was designed to suit it, from the door handles to the stained glass. The Chapel of Christ the Servant and Jacob Epstein's sculpture of St Michael Slaying the Devil were my personal favourite parts.

Sutherland's tapestry design is awe-inspiring and I was particularly drawn to the seated figure of Christ. In the afternoon I was fortunate enough to see a selection of his designs for the tapestries in the store of the Herbert Museum and Art Gallery. His sketched for the seated figure were created according to a number of gridlines and mathematical calculations. It was surprising to see such technical care being taken by an artist whose paintings have a free and immediate feel to them.

My priority in Coventry was to see the Cappers Tapestry. In the 1950s, under Sax Shaw's artistic direction, a large number of tapestries were woven at Dovecot to his designs. There is little information on these in the studio's archives and most of their whereabouts are unknown. Whilst looking through the Basil Spence Papers at the Royal Commission for Ancient and Historic Monuments of Scotland in Edinburgh. Some of the correspondance between Spence and the studio referred to a coat of arms designed and woven for the Cappers Company at Coventry Cathedral.

The Cappers Meeting Room was the only room to survive the WWII bombing of Coventry Cathedral, excluding the tower. In the early 1950s it was repaired and Edinburgh Tapestry Company was commissioned to design and weave a commemorative tapestry featuring their coat of arms.

The tapestry has survived in good condition, but is sadly rarely seen. Reaching the room requires climbing up a very narrow, dark staircase - not suitable for large numbers of people! Despite it's location in a rather chilly, unused room its colours are still as vibrant as they originally were and the design has Sax Shaw's distinctive style about it.

Conferences

Two upcoming conferences will allow me the opportunity to share my research with a different audience. The first, 'Boundaries? New Histories of Art, Architecture and Design' is a postgraduate conference at the University of Bristol, organised by the RX - Research Exchange in History of Art group. I will be presenting a 20 minute paper titled 'Tapestry and Beyond: Claire Barclay's quick, slow'. I am really looking forward to meeting research students from other universities and having the opportunity to discuss my research with people working in a different area. The abstract for my paper can be read here.

quick, slow (detail), Claire Barclay, 2010, tapestry woven by David Cochrane, Dovecot Studios

A few weeks later I will be at the 'Pairings: Conversations, Collaborations and Materials' conference at Manchester School of Art. The paper will explore the relationship between Dovecot and Harold Cohen. The abstract for this paper can be found here.

Untitled (detail), 1965, designed by Harold Cohen, woven at Dovecot Studios. City Art Centre: City of Edinburgh Museums and Galleries. Currently on display in Currie Library.

 The conference organisers recently updated the website with names of the key speakers and a list of provisional speakers. It is quite daunting seeing my name up there with some very prominent academics! I am particularly looking forward to hearing Glenn Adamson, as well as textile artist Alice Kettle. Lesley Millar, from the University of the Creative Arts, will also be very interesting - last year she spoke at a Warp and Weft Symposium in Wales and her knowledge of contemporary textiles is expansive.

Tapestry as a textile

The concept of 'categorising' tapestry has always been one of difficulty. Is it a craft? A textile? A work of fine art? What about the elements of design? Or the difference between a tapestry designed by a weaver, or one designed by a so-called fine artist?

One thing which I have been considering if the profound difference between woven tapestry and other woven textiles (for the purpose of this blog I'll be referring to them as cloth). The differences are not just concerned with weaving methods, but also design and function.

Weaving Method


David Cochrane weaving a sample for a project with Claire Barclay at Dovecot, 2010

Both tapestry and cloth are woven using warp and weft. The warps are prepared on the loom, parallel to each other, and the weft is woven through them. This is where the similarities end. During the weaving of cloth, both the warp and weft remain visible and the weft is woven through the warp from one side to the other. In tapestry weaving, the weft covers the warp (exceptions to this rule occur in some experimental tapestries) and is not seen in the finished piece. In addition, the weft is not woven from one side of the tapestry to the others - instead a number of bobbins (as seen in the image above) are used in sections of the tapestry, both small and large, to create areas of different colours.

Design

The design process for tapestry and cloth is different in many ways. The patterns or colours in cloth can either be incorporated during the weaving process or printed onto the fabric afterwards. Because of the industrial production of some cloths, patterns are often repeatable, such as the one below:

Harold Cohen for Heal and Son Ltd, Vineyard, c.1959, screen printed cotton, 48in, repeat 21 5in

Tapestries are more finite and this has an impact on the design process. The weaving of repeated patterns in tapestry is not time-saving - the tapestry will take just as long to weave if the design is one large image or a small image repeated 10 times. Becuase of this, designs for tapestries are conceived as you might a painting. The design is held by the four sides of the tapestry and the complexities of repeating patterns need not be a concern.

Verdure, designed by Liz Rideal, woven at Dovecot Studios

Function

Cloth today is both utilitarian and artistic. It is industrially woven in enormous amounts for clothing and upholstery. But there are also a number of individual weavers who create beautiful weavings which cannot be seen as anything other than works of art.

Laura Thomas, Grasses, jacquard woven silk and cotton, 60x70cm, 2007

Throughout history tapestry has been utilised for its acoustic and thermal abilities. Often woven in wool, cotton or silk, tapestries were used to warm drafty stone castles in Medieval France. Today, large tapestries are still commissioned to act as an acoustic tool hidden in a work of art. But the primary function of tapestry today is one of aesthetic. People purchase them to hang in their homes, or corporate buildings for the same reason they purchase any other work of art: to enjoy looking at it. 

St Catherine's Triptych, designed by Tom Phillips, woven at Dovecot Studios, St. Catherine's College, Oxford

It is clear that the term 'textile' encompasses a wide variety or practices and creative methods. This should be celebrated. Textiles have one of the richest histories out of all of the arts -  and their development from their use as shelters from the elements to items worthy of display in a gallery makes a fascinating story.

A Day in Manchester

As part of my research, I am trying to go and see as many tapestries as I can, within financial reason. Tapestries are notoriously difficult to photograph: the textures of the weaving don't show up or the colours are distorted. There is nothing like seeing a tapestry in the flesh. So much work and time goes into weaving that I can spend ages in front of a tapestry examining the shapes and marks made by the weaver.

It was certainly worth going all the way to Manchester to see the Whitworth Tapestry, designed by Eduardo Paolozzi and woven in 1967/8 at Dovecot.

Whitworth Art Gallery, University of Manchester

The Whitworth Art Gallery, run by Manchester University, is home to an expansive collection of modern and historic paintings, sculpture, prints, textiles and a unique collection of wallpapers.The historic part of the building, which you can see above, is mainly home to the collections and the galleries occupy a modern extension built in the 1960s.

There was time to look at the galleries before going to see the tapestry. The textile gallery, exhibiting a selection of the permanent collection, was fascinating and showed both historic and contemporary works side by side. A favourite was Jennifer Vicker's Yesterday's News, a quilt made from newspapers and Judith Duffy's Sheep in Wolf's Clothing, a knitted piece which plays on the saying 'a wolf in sheep's clothing'.

There were two exhibitions running on the ground floor: 'Unstable States: John Ruskin and the Truth of Water' and 'The Land Between Us'. The Land Between Us was an exhibition featuring both contemporary and older landscapes, in a variety of mediums, displayed alongside each other. The exhibition obviously had bold intentions, exhibiting works together, which would not normally occupy the same gallery space. However the lack of labelling on many of the objects was furstrating and many of the pictures did not hold their own in the roomy gallery. That being said, the exhibition was was worth going to see, if only to experience Olafur Eliasson's installation, The Forked Forest Path.

The Forked Forest Path, Olafur Eliasson

When we eventually went up to see the tapestry, I was staggered by the vibrancy of the colours used in the tapestry. I was fortunate to be able to look at Paolozzi's original collaged design alongside the tapestry. His collage looks like two images, put together. One uses bright colours whereas the other is more sugary in tone. It is clear that the colours used in the tapestry have been subtly changed which results in a more cohesive composition with a bolder colour palette.

Whitworth Tapestry (detail), designed by Eduardo Paolozzi, woven by Archie Brennan, Douglas Grierson, Fiona Mathison and Harry Wright at Dovecot Studios. Whitworth Art Gallery Collection.

To mimic the finely dotted areas of Paolozzi's design, the weavers have chosen a time-consuming method of alternating between pink and white yarn on every horizontal warp. This technique proves to be very effective and must have taken a considerable amount of patience!

The tapestry's 'object file' in the collection has a wealth of correspondance, not only about the tapestry's design and weaving, but also referring to the grants applied for to cover the cost of the tapestry. Such archival information is so invaluable and often gives an artwork an added dimension.

Whilst in Manchester I also had the opportunity to whizz into the Manchester Art Gallery where I saw one of the most amusing pieces of furniture I think I have ever seen. Click here to see Scrub Together by Jason Taylor.

'Collaboration' - a contemporary buzz word

My enthusiasm for Harold Cohen has continued to grow since beginning my PhD. As I mentioned in an earlier post, his on going relationship and openness about the experience of working with Dovecot provides a lot information from which to leap into further analysis. 'Collaboration' and 'Inter-disciplinary' are the buzz words of the moment and seem to be taken as contemporary ideas, but the work done by Cohen in collaboration with the studio illustrates that these approaches to art were being undertaken many decades previously.

Untitled 29s (c.1963), Harold Cohen, acrylic and mixed media on canvas, installed in 'Tapestry Revealed: Harold Cohen' exhibition at Dovecot, courtesy of Bernard Jacobson Gallery, London

In tapestry's history, there has been an on-going relationship between artist designers and weavers. The Raphael Sistine Chapel tapestries exhibited at the V&A last year are testament to that. But when I use the term 'collaboration' I am referring to a process in which the interchange of ideas takes place on a more personal level, often face to face. Working together requires the coming together of different personalities and often their project's success is defined by their compatability as colleagues. This could be that they have different ideas which compliment each other. Or that they have shared ideas about visual communication and what they want to pass on to the viewer.

In the case of Dovecot and Harold Cohen it was the relationship between Cohen and Archie Brennan (then Artistic Director) in the 1960s which kick-started their work. I'm currently exploring this further in a paper, taking into consideration the two different periods in which Cohen designed for Dovecot, the changes in Cohen's working practices and the nature of the tapestries which were produced.

National Museum of Scotland collection

A few days before Christmas I was lucky enough to visit the National Museum of Scotland's Collection Centre to view a number of Dovecot tapestries in their collection.

The variety and quality of material they own is outstanding and every time a new tapestry was rolled out I was awed by the colours and workmanship. Highlights included a seat cover designed by Cecil Beaton, a beautifully virbrant 1940s tapestry based on a painting by Gauguin and Graham Sutherland's Emblem on Red (1980).

Unfortunately I am unable to reproduce any of our photos here so you will have to wait until the centenary exhibition in 2012 to see them! You can however see one of the tapestries, designed by Archie Brennan, here.

Sutherland and Paolozzi

I have finally moved into my brand new study space and have immediately surrounded myself with books and files. For me, having a personal space and surrounding myself with familiar things (whether they are academic titles, or silly postcards) is preferable to sitting in a library or cafe writing.

For the past two weeks I have been immersing myself in Graham Sutherland and Eduardo Paolozzi. Who knew I would become such a fan of both.

Sutherland designed a number of tapestries for Dovecot from the late-1940s onwards. Dovecot was one of the weaving studios competing for the commission to weave his tapestry design for Coventry Cathedral, which eventually went to a French studio. Apparently, negotiations got so far that a wall was knocked down at Dovecot's original studio to create the room needed for a big enough loom!

Sutherland's creation of images which were confined to the picture frame and made little reference to continuing outside it made his work highly suitable for tapestry. The rich colours or red, green and yelow also translated well and gained greater depth in their depicition in wool.

The highlight of the week was locating one of the Wading Birds tapestries in the collection of the Vancouver Art Gallery - they subsequently informed me that the cartoon for it is in the Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto. Clearly reading Agatha Christie novels has rubbed off on me - I am a modern day Miss Marple.

Pearson Tapestry, 1996, designed by Eduardo Paolozzi, woven by Douglas Grierson, David Cochrane and Naomi Cleaver. Photo: Shannon Tofts. Private Collection

The tapestry designs created by Paolozzi for Dovecot Studios are not only some of my favourites, but are also the favourite of Douglas Grierson, Head Weaver. In a conference in 1996, Douglas wrote that Paolozzi allowed the weavers greater freedom with his designs as their relationship evolved. For the Cleish Castle tapestries in the 1970s, Paolozzi simply gave the weavers a black and white outline and a selection of 30 colours; the weavers were to compose the colours in any way they wanted.

This seems to bear a resemblance to his working methods in printmaking of the same period. In an article by Lucius Grisebach, the writer describes how Paolozzi started to design his screen prints using black and white photographs which were further translated into simple black outlines. It was only later in the process, in collaboration with the printer(s) that the colours were decided upon.

Next week I am off to theEdinburgh Tapestry Workshops archives on Mount Stuart,  Bute. There is little in the archives on the 1950s to 1970s so I am hoping to fill some gaps by looking at the minutes for the AGMs with Elizabeth Cumming, the curator of Dovecot's 2012 centenary exhibition and my partner in crime.