Connecticut Needlework: Women, Art, and Family, 1740-1840

Twenty years before what has been traditionally accepted as the beginning of two-dimensional pictorial art in Connecticut (William Johnston's portrait painting in the region in 1762), talented and skillful Connecticut women were creating pictures on canvas-assembling color, line, form, and symbols into visual compositions intended for display. These women's canvases, in contrast to those typically considered by art historians, used needles instead of brushes, and multicolored threads instead of paint.

Some types of needlework are primarily associated with Connecticut - even distinctive to Connecticut - such as bed rugs, quilted petticoats with figural designs, and the use of crewel embroidery on women's dresses. But whatever the end product, Connecticut needlewomen created a broad range of aesthetically pleasing figural and decorative art that was displayed within private homes or worn on personal occasions. This exhibition makes public a variety of work that affirms the fundamental role that female Connecticut needleworkers played in the development of the visual arts of early America.