STUDIOS: Ethel Stein (RIP, 1917-2018), Master Weaver at the Art Institute of Chicago
Mark Chamberlin / Eric Schrotenboer
03.14.2018Legendary, pioneering textile artist Ethel Stein passed away Monday at the age of 100. From her obituary in the New York Times:
Working largely out of the artistic limelight at her home in Croton-on-Hudson, N.Y., Ms. Stein resurrected historical weaving techniques and merged them with 20th-century Bauhaus design sensibilities. “The result was something new and profound,” Daniel Walker, former chairman of the department of textiles at the Art Institute of Chicago, said by email, “seemingly simple patterns based on geometry and shading, whose apparent simplicity had been made possible only because of the technical complexity of the weaving. Stein’s artistic legacy is thus a unique one.”
This film by Mark Chamberlin with soundtrack by Eric Schrotenboer is a gorgeous peek at the nonagenarian at work in her studio, commissioned on the occasion of her 2014 exhibition at The Art Institute of Chicago exhibition Ethel Stein: Master Weaver.