Ethel Stein, Master Weaver

"Ethel Stein is an artist who only now, at the age of 96, is beginning to get the recognition she deserves from the broader public. She has never been overly concerned with promoting or marketing her work, and she has tended to lean “counter-trend,” as textile designer Jack Lenor Larsen has aptly put it, creating squares of quiet pattern to be placed on walls at a time when other textile artists were emphasizing the sculptural potential of fiber by working in three dimensions. Produced on a drawloom—a type of handloom that incorporates a figure harness capable of controlling each warp thread separately—her work seems deceptively simple, but as one understands the mysteries and complexities of this weaving method historically favored for creating figured textiles, the sophistication and challenge of her work become undeniable. "

Exhibition at Art Institute of Chicago

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