Sapar Contemporary Gallery + Incubator

Sapar Contemporary is pleased to announce their first exhibition of works by legendary American master weaver Ethel Stein (1917-2018). Stein who wore many hats, sculptor, puppet maker, textile conservator, educator, became best known as a textile artist celebrated for her masterful drawloom weavings that fused ancient techniques with modernist aesthetics. Stein's loom, which the artist designed herself, might have been the most special of its kind at the time, in that it was a Draw Loom that could be run by a single operator. It is now in the collection of the Art Institute of Chicago. Ethel Stein (1917-2018) is an artist whose work can be firmly placed within a group of influential artists in the fiber arts movement of the mid-20th and early 21st centuries, many of whom were her friends and colleagues. Included in the group are Annie Albers, Mary Walker Phillips, Lenore Tawney, Klara Cherepov, Dora Jung, and Peter Collingwood. Three of the most distinctive keys to the understanding and appreciation of Stein’s work are her connection to the legacy of the Bauhaus, the German art and design school (1919-1933); her in-depth study of historical textile structures in major museum collections; and Stein’s application of her own extraordinary resourcefulness, creativity, and mechanical proficiency.