NEW YORK.- The exhibition White on White (and a little gray), on view through September 17, 2006, highlights America's fascination with Neoclassicism and underscores the importance of white as emblematic of the antique past. The neoclassic scheme represented a dramatic shift in the decorative arts that was beautifully expressed in three distinct artforms—whitework textiles, print work embroideries, and marble dust drawings. Dating from the Federal era through the end of the nineteenth century, the exhibition explores female responses to the classical aesthetic.

The American Folk Art Museum holds a breathtaking collection of whitework textiles, executed in a variety of embroidery and stuff work techniques, that have never been shown together. Approximately ten bedcovers, selected by senior curator Stacy C. Hollander, will be included, from the museum’s earliest example (dated 1796) to others made throughout the nineteenth century. They will be augmented by elaborate monochromatic needleworks, known as print works, and eighteen evocative marble dust drawings, often with classical references, from private and public collections. To accentuate the feminine participation in Neoclassicism, there is also an intimate portrait by Ammi Phillips of a woman sitting at a table covered by an ornate embroidered whitework, a piece of hand-stitched white lace wrapped around her finger.

Whitework
Whitework bedcovers followed in a long tradition of whole-cloth quilts whose singlecolor top provided an opportunity to prominently display exquisite needlework. The term whitework describes several methods such as stuffing, cording, and embroidered candlewicking, used to create elegant raised designs in white thread on white fabric. "The emphasis on white in the neoclassical concept was realized in snowy expanses of white cotton or bleached linen that turned beds into sculptural planes through raised floral and linear designs," comments Stacy Hollander. The range of dates found on whiteworks in the museum’s collection, from 1796 to 1897, indicates the enduring popularity of all-white bedcovers over the course of a century, and the persistence of classicism as an inspiration in the decorative arts. The earliest example demonstrates a strong reliance upon the graceful "Tree of Life" motif introduced into quilts through imported painted Indian cottons called palampores. Its date of 1796 places it at the beginning of the fashion for whitework bedcovers and soon after Eli Whitney's invention of the cotton gin and the establishment of Samuel Slater’s textile mill, industrial developments that revolutionized the production of cotton in America.

Stuff work featured motifs that were outlined with quilting to create a cell and filled with batting inserted through the back. The raised motifs could be further accentuated by dense, flat quilting that emphasized the sculptural effects, "especially when viewed in the harsh and raking candlelight of the period," notes Ms. Hollander. This technique is especially successful in the "Dots and Cornucopia" whitework that bears a further resemblance to European lace made around the same time.