CONTEXTAUCTION

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1Milkmaid’s blouse

front, Kutch, northwest

India, early 20th century.

Silk on cotton, mirrors,

modified chain stitch,

French knots, 0.76m

(2'6") square, mounted.

Christie’s New York, Larsen

Collection, 5 April 2007,

estimate $200-300

2Shoulder cloth (detail),

Sumatra, Indonesia, early

20th century. Silk weft

ikat with gold weft

brocaded borders,

0.84 x 2.26m (2'9" x 7'5").

Estimate $500-700

3Asante man’s Kente’

cloth (detail), Ghana,

20th century. Silk, strip

woven, 1.19 x 3.30m

(3'11" x 10'10").

Estimate $200-400

4Man’s shirt, Sudan,

mid-20th century. Hand

woven cotton, sewing

machine embroidery,

1.07 by 0.66m (3'6" x 2'2").

Estimate $200-400

5Quilt, Uzbekistan,

ca. 1900. Silk warp-ikat,

1.91 x 2.74m (6’3” x 9’0”).

estimate $800-1,200

6Man’s Kabuki costume

for a fisherman’s role

with large scale crab,

lobster and octopus

motifs, Japan, ca.1977.

Printed plainweave

machine made cotton,

1.35 x 1.52m (4'5" x 5'0").

Estimate $700-900

of a specific culture and an intense examination of a particular technique or design that Larsen has undertaken on his travels. Japanese cotton rugs, Sumatran funeral wrappers and vibrant Ghanaian kentecloths 3are assembled as if mere border stamps on a well-thumbed passport. Jack Larsen appears to have visited more countries on his odyssey than a United Nations ambassador but retains a particular fondness for Central Asia, remarking that “I’d been told by the great Pupil Jayakar that, of course, everything wonderful there is came out of Central Asia. I had reason to believe that. I’d instinctively liked the Uzbek traditions, and whatever came out of those Silk Road metropolises.” Larsen recalls many rewarding negotiations with merchants, traders and dealers along the way such as a transaction in Afghanistan during the winter of 1970, remarking that “I’ll never forget passing a street of bazaars as we came into Kunduz. I didn’t go to my room, but instead went directly there, saw a wiry man with some slant to his eyes and said, “You’re Uzbek!’ ‘Ya’, he said, extending a hand and pulling me up to his platform, a metre off the ground. There was patchwork, felt, and all kinds of wonderful things nailed to wooden walls. The nails were rusty they had been there so long. In short

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order, everything was mine. He then called in his neighbour merchants to celebrate. That afternoon, and for two more following, we men sat crosslegged on his bare booth taking tea.” Jack Larsen has found an unexpected kinship with many of the weavers and traders that he encountered, “Somehow, as I’ve so often worked with Third World simple people, we were able to carry on elaborate conversations without a common language… It’s also my feeling that Americans are red-blooded people, more related to tribal folk than to courtly ones. And that kind of design works better than courtly design or overly refined finishes for us too.” It seems that this lack of pretension also applies to Larsen’s textile collection. Perhaps it is a disregard as to monetary value or status regarding the intrinsic beauty or individual merit of a weaving that binds this eclectic group together. He does not assign a hierarchy to his ‘treasures’ or to the people and cultures that produced them. The significance is in the journey and in the process itself. In his 80th year Jack Lenor Larsen continues to collaborate with weavers around the world. He is still travelling, still learning and experimenting and pushing the technical and artistic boundaries of the craft of weaving.

HALI ISSUE 151155