Exhibition Guide
The Drape Maker
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Art Object Info
In 1939, as awareness of African-American contributions to the common culture expanded, the Baltimore Museum of Art mounted one of the first exhibitions of contemporary work by African-American artists ever held in a public art museum. The BMA has continued to collect African-American art to the present day. The Drape Maker by Haywood Bill Rivers entered the BMA collection in 1948. Like Tailor Shop, also by Rivers, The Drape Maker is indebted to the artist’s study of paintings by Henri Matisse in the BMA’s Cone Collection. However, its seductive passages of bright fabric also resonate with earlier American art such as Winslow Homer’s Dressing for the Carnival, which portrays Southern free black women who earned their livings as seamstresses. Modernist painter Karl Knaths, a contemporary of Rivers, also used fabric to introduce rich color and patterning in his still life Havana Bandana, which hangs nearby. The Drape Maker retains its original frame.
Art Object Info
In 1939, as awareness of African-American contributions to the common culture expanded, the Baltimore Museum of Art mounted one of the first exhibitions of contemporary work by African-American artists ever held in a public art museum. The BMA has continued to collect African-American art to the present day. The Drape Maker by Haywood Bill Rivers entered the BMA collection in 1948. Like Tailor Shop, also by Rivers, The Drape Maker is indebted to the artist’s study of paintings by Henri Matisse in the BMA’s Cone Collection. However, its seductive passages of bright fabric also resonate with earlier American art such as Winslow Homer’s Dressing for the Carnival, which portrays Southern free black women who earned their livings as seamstresses. Modernist painter Karl Knaths, a contemporary of Rivers, also used fabric to introduce rich color and patterning in his still life Havana Bandana, which hangs nearby. The Drape Maker retains its original frame.