Intrinsic Beauty

After my June visit to the “Intrinsic Beauty: Celebrating the Art of Textiles”

exhibit at The Textile Museum at George Washington University, I could not get the

Museum’s founder’s name – George Jewitt Myers – out of my head. It wasn’t until I

got home and looked at my notes on Dorothy Wright Liebes, whose biography I am

writing, that I connected the dots.

While it is not clear how the two of them met, it is clear that Liebes made an

impression on Myers. He wasn’t alone. He also wasn’t single. His wife rubbed elbows

with First Lady Florence Harding in 1920s Washington D. C., fundraising for a new

hospital among other charitable causes. Myers was heir to the Bristol Myers fortune,

and was a nominal forester, but what he was passionate about was textiles. He

created a museum for his collection in the house next door to where he lived on S

Street.

The handmade textile art collection started by Myers in 1925 has grown to

number more than 21,000 pieces and is one of the most significant in the world.

There are examples from five continents across a span of 5,000 years.

And yet, when invited by Dorothy Liebes to visit her weaving studio in San

Francisco in the summer of 1944, he claimed to be unsuited to the task:

"Be sure to let me know just when you’re going to be in the East again

and as you suggest, let's be sure next time – let's be sure to allow a

little (more) “time for social happiness” – I think that’s a very nice

thought! I also realize how lucky I was to accidentally find you free – I

certainly enjoyed that evening in New York. Washington was a

disappointment and I’m afraid I showed it only too plainly. Please

excuse the business paper – and the writing of which I do very little in

longhand as you may judge – also my bad eye makes hard to do. I

would like to see your shop but you don’t realize what an ignorant

person I am."

If that’s not flirting, I don’t know what is. “Social happiness” could mean a

number of things, but the false modesty of “. . .what an ignorant person I am” begs

belief.

Gossip aside, the Museum is celebrating its centennial with its second

commemorative exhibit of the year – the first being “Intrinsic Beauty,” mentioned

earlier – on August 16. “Enduring Traditions” will examine the role textiles from

around the world have played in celebrations, performances and religious

ceremonies across the centuries.

According to the Museum’s website, visitors will see “masterpieces such as

Chinese minority textiles, a family heirloom sari, a dazzling embroidered “suzani”

from Uzbekistan and traditional garments from throughout Latin America.”

If the eye-popping pieces I saw in the first commemorative exhibit are any

indication of what “Enduring Traditions” has to offer, I recommend finding an excuse

to visit our nation’s capitol to feast on these textiles, exhibited in the beautiful

galleries at George Washington University.

Admission is free.