Untitled Tapestry, 1976

Private Collection, Toronto

The 1977 exhibition of Canadian Tapestries was a collaboration between 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.”