Review: Gloria F. Ross & Modern Tapestry

Gloria F. Ross & Modern Tapestry (book cover)

Ann Lane Hedlund

Publisher: Yale University Press (in association with Arizona State Museum, The University of Arizona)

Colour plates: generously illustrated throughout in full colour

Date published: 2010

ISBN: 780300166354

Review by Sally Reckert, January 2023

Ann Lane Hedlund had a long working relationship and friendship with Gloria F. Ross (1923-1998). They first met in 1979 when the anthropologist Hedlund was asked by Ross to introduce her to Navajo weavers who might be able to translate the American abstract artist Kenneth Noland’s paintings into tapestry. From this introduction the two women went on to co-curate exhibitions of Navajo works and to found the Gloria F. Ross Center for Tapestry Studies (1997) with Hedlund as its first director.

Ross lived in New York and became a passionate champion of colour in art, rug hooking tapestry; so much so that weavers will all recognise Ross’s need to convert her child’s bedroom into a dedicated weaving room. 1971 was a turning point for Ross, she gave up the role of weaver for that of a go-between for weavers and artists, or in her words, used in jest, “Éditrice americaine de tapisseries d’artistes contemporains”.

Read the review at: Gloria F. Ross & Modern Tapestry