The Art Newspaper

Looming large: the return of the tapestry

Artists, it seems, just love to weave, and prices are appealing. But will the works hold their value?

By . From Art Basel Miami Beach daily edition
Published online: 05 December 2008

Collectors who covet a tapestry designed by a contemp­orary artist are spoilt for choice these days: Chuck Close, Julie Verhoeven and ­Fran­cesco Vezzoli have recently turned their creative attention to woven wall hangings. As have Kara Walker, Grayson Perry, Peter Blake, Paul Noble and Gavin Turk who are among the 15 artists who have been commissioned by Christopher and Suzanne Sharp of Banners of Per­suasion, London, to design tapestries. The Sharps have brought a selling exhibition, “Demons, Yarns & Tales” to the Design District, Miami (until 6 December) following the tapestries’ successful launch in London last month.

In Miami, Perry’s Vote Alan Measles For God, 2008 ($63,000), and Walker’s A Warm Summer Evening in 1863, 2008 ($124,000), were on reserve but no sales were closed at the time of going to press. However, in London 19 tapestries sold—the entire first edition. Walker’s design, which depicts a 19th-century lynching in New York, achieved the highest price of £65,000. “All of them went to private collectors” rather than interior designers said Mr Sharp.

In the 19th century, when the Arts and Crafts Movement revived tapestry making, working by hand was all-important. Today new technology is propelling tapestries into the 21st century. According to Chuck Close: “The computer makes it possible.” A piece of paper with punched-in holes is “analogous to a tapestry cartoon”, he explained. Indeed, the Jacquard loom’s binary system of punch cards was a 19th-century precursor of the computer.

Close is a pioneer of the use of computers to design a tapestry. In 1971 he created a woven portrait of Philip Glass for the Brooklyn Academy of Music. The software Close now uses allows the New York-based artist to use the thinnest of lines. Test tapestry weave files are made for him in Belgium, before the final work is completed.

Close notes that, by comparison with painting, “tapestries are very reasonable” in price. A large-scale tapestry self-portrait by Close (2007) is on show at Pace­Wildenstein’s stand (H10) at ABMB. The price is reported to be $150,000. “When paintings sell in the millions, tapestries are an opportunity for a whole bunch of people to have one,” said the artist.

London-based Grayson Perry’s tapestries are made in China but little of his work is lost in translation. “I love the way they have copied even the tiny missed pixels of colour from when I was colouring in my design on the computer,” he said.

The domestic scale of many contemporary tapestries also makes them attractive. The works in “Demons, Yarns & Tales” typically measure six feet by six feet. “Antique tapestries can go up to 12 feet,” says Simona Blau, who follows in her late father Vojtech’s footsteps as a tapestry dealer in New York. “Few people can accommodate that kind of size now,” she said, whereas her father sold larger-scale historic examples to Steven Spielberg and Dustin Hoffman among others.

Perry has been so enticed by tapestry that he has decided to forgo the smaller contemporary format and design one that is 50 feet long, which will be produced in Brussels. “The eye-popping colours were tempting whereas certain colours can be difficult to obtain in ceramics,” says Perry, who plans to include the tapestry in an upcoming solo show (date and location to be announced) alongside work in clay.

The appointment of a tapestries curator, Thomas Camp­bell, as the next director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, is yet another sign that interest in tapestries is growing.

“I think that [Mr Camp­bell’s appointment] sparked the opinion that tapestries are about to have a huge revival—as a result, we pre-sold six pieces before the show opened in London,” said Christopher Sharp.

Historic tapestries have suffered a roller-coaster ride in the marketplace over the years. At the turn of the 20th century, renowned dealer Joseph Duveen was selling them to industrialists such

as Henry Clay Frick at higher prices than old masters. After World War I, however, prices plunged. 

Even work by Picasso and Warhol has fallen out of favour at times, according to Jennifer Roth, Sotheby’s New York decorative arts specialist. “The problem is they were made in multiples and even Andy’s Flowers was made in an edition of 20, so in value they are more comparable to a print,” she said.

That said, prices for Warhol, who even did a tapestry version of Marilyn, are on the rise. “It used to be when they hit the auction world, a Warhol would sell for $4,000 but now because of the popularity of the genre [Warhol tapestries] have gone up to $30,000,” said Ms Roth. A Picasso can now make six figures.

Ms Roth believes the value of contemporary artist tapestries will depend on their quality and craftsmanship as well as accuracy in tracking the size of an edition, which in the past has been hard to establish.

Even with the unpredictable market ahead, some artists are weighing the multiple options that tapestries offer. Of his super-sized tapestry, Perry said, “I may just keep it for myself or I might edition it and sell it off to corporate foyers—that is, if they become rich again.”