Announcing Passion & Legacy international design project

Passion & Legacy is Red Strand Design’s first major international design project and celebrates the legacy of the Irish Arts & Crafts Movement (1886 – 1925) and two of the era’s leading needlework women, The Lethbridge sisters (Julia Baroness Carew (1863-1922) and Lady Jane Cory (1865-1947). The project is inspired by Dr Lynn Hulse’s research and forthcoming book, The Embroidered Furnishings of the Lethbridge Sisters (Ornamental Embroidery, London, 2015).

The project is open to art schools & universities – tutors & students – and mixed media practitioners & stitchers.  Red Strand offers participants the choice from two archival references – Julia Baroness Carew’s Tree of Life panels at Girton College, Cambridge and Lady Jane Cory’s three embroideries held in the Collections of the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa.

During their lifetime, the Lethbridge sisters, Julia Baroness Carew (1863-1922) and Lady Jane Cory (1865-1947), were famed throughout society for their needlework skills and for the scale of the embroideries they produced for their Irish and London homes. Julia’s passion was for antique work, crewel embroidery in the Jacobean style (tree of life motif), designs of the Italian Renaissance and Chinese willow pattern, while Jane preferred figurative compositions, including the work of contemporary artists and designers like Edward Burne-Jones, Henry Holiday and Alexander Fisher. One Wexford neighbour, Edward Richards-Orpen of Monksgrange, recalled in his memoirs, ‘To see them bending over their remarkable tapestry work was clearly pre-Raphaelite at best; the astonishing industries of [the sisters] has to be seen to be believed.’

Events

• Talk by Dr Lynn Hulse at Girton College, Cambridge on the Carew Embroideries, 6 July 2015

• Workshop with Dr Lynn Hulse at the Flax Mill Textiles, Dungiven, Co. Derry, N. Ireland, 12 September 2015
• Lecture by Dr Lynn Hulse on The Embroidered Furnishings of the Lethbridge Sisters on board the Queen Mary, Long Beach, San Francisco, September 2015

• Lecture by Dr Lynn Hulse on The Embroidered Furnishings of the Lethbridge Sisters at the Textile Society AGM, at Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester, 6/7 November 2015

• Passion & Legacy Pop-Up Exhibition at GMIT Galway, Ireland Exhibition, 3-12 December 2015

• Symposium & International Juried Exhibition in association with the Irish Linen Museum, Belfast, NI, Friday 23 January 2016

• London Launch of Dr Lynn Hulse’s book The Embroidered Furnishings of the Lethbridge Sisters, William Morris Gallery,  February 2016

• Travelling Exhibition at RMIT Melbourne, Australia during Virgin Australia Melbourne Fashion Festival, March 2016, then plans to travel to New Zealand in association with Massey University and Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa.

• Travelling Exhibition at Winterthur Museum, Delaware, USA, October 2016 at needlework conference on Art and Embroidery; and Ottawa, Canada tbc

Participants to date include:   Australia – RMIT Melbourne; New Zealand – Massey University, Wellington; Ireland – National College of Art & Design, Dublin, Galway Mayo Institute of Technology, CIT, Cork, Kinsale College of FE, Cork, Limerick School of Art & Design, Cork Textile Network; UK –  Ulster University, Belfast, Winchester School of Art, Ornamental Embroidery, West Country Embroiderers;  TEXERE and Embroidery Guilds in the UK, Ireland, New Zealand and Australia, plus private professional Textile & Stitch Groups & Studios.

For further information contact cm@redstranddesign.com

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