Untitled Tapestry, 1976

Private Collection, Ontario

“Canadian Tapestries 1977: an exhibition of 23 tapestries designed by Canadian painters and sculptors”, Art Gallery of Toronto, 1977, pages 5, and 20-21

The 1977 exhibition of Canadian Tapestries was a collaboration of some of the country’s foremost painters and sculptors and the works were exhibited almost simultaneously across Canada. The project was imagined in 1975 by Fay Loeb of Toronto, upon reflecting on the need for public art within commercial and public buildings. Marie Fleming, the exhibition organizer, notes: “A solution was perceived in the possibility of artist-designed tapestries – works of art that could bring not only life, by way of the creative talents of painters and sculptors, but visual and physical warmth.” These tapestries would become art for the public, to be appreciated and widely seen. A group of twenty-three artists from across Canada developed sketches of their textile designs, which were then transformed by skilled artisans in a workshop. According to Fleming, “The tapestries are not simply paintings transposed. The tapestries have their own characteristics, their own textural richness.” Sorel Etrog designed a tapestry of coloured and shaded blocks for inclusion in this exhibition, drawing upon his “Hinge” works of the late 1970s. Etrog recalls: “On a vacation in Israel, visiting my family, I picked up a child’s drawing pad and began to draw doodles of flat and organic surfaces connected by hinges… The hinge started to obsess me and so I adopted it.” Etrog’s design for “Untitled Tapestry”, a variation on the textile work included in the 1977 exhibition, is naturally reflective of the artist’s work in other media, and is a marked contrast between medium and articulated forms.