Exhibition Archive

To Dye For: A World Saturated in Color

July 31st 2010 – January 9th 2011
de Young, Lonna and Marshall Wais Gallery and
Diana Dollar Knowles and Gorham B. Knowles Gallery for Textile Arts

To Dye For: A World Saturated in Color features over 50 textiles and costumes from the comprehensive collection of textiles from Africa, Asia, and the Americas at the Fine Arts Museum, as well as several private Bay Area collections. What unifies each of these works is that they are all dyed in a resist dye technique. Resist-dyeing is the inclusive term used for process of dyeing textiles in which patterns are created by preventing the dye from reaching specific areas of the cloth. Methods included are tie-dye, stitch-resist, batik or wax-resist dyeing, stencil-resist, mordant-resist, and ikat (warp- or weft-resist dyeing), as well as other techniques used around the world.

To Dye For not only highlights the museum’s impressive permanent collection of textiles, but also shows how cultures across the world have used similar techniques for centuries—with results that are sometimes similar, and at other times startlingly different. The end result will be a stunning array of textures, patterns, and color.

(above) Mat (mosen) for the tea ceremony, 19th century Mongolia or China for the Japanese market Wool; felted, resist dyeing (tie-dye) The Caroline and H. McCoy Jones Collection Gift of Caroline McCoy-Jones	(above) Married woman's shoulder cloth (lawon), 19th century Indonesia, Palambang, Sumatra Silk; stitch-resist dyeing (tritik) The Caroline and H. McCoy Jones Collection Gift of Caroline McCoy-Jones
(above) Ana Lisa Hedstrom, (American, b. 1943) Horizontal Shift, 2010 Silk; wrap-resist dyeing (arashi shibori), pieced, hand stitched Collection of the Artist photo credit: Don Tuttle