Modern Art Steps Off The Wall At Aberdeen Art Gallery
Artist Textiles - Picasso to Warhol explores how 20th-century masters experimented with textiles as an artistic medium.
A remarkable collection of artistic experiments lands at Aberdeen Art Gallery this weekend. The gallery opens its doors to Artist Textiles - Picasso to Warhol, a collection that shows what happens when names like Picasso and Warhol work with clothing and textiles.
The exhibition presents over 130 pieces where 40 artists have stepped away from canvas, to work with fabric. These aren’t just drawings printed on material - they show how artists like Alexander Calder and Henri Matisse adapted their styles to work with pattern and fashion. Among the collection are 19 complete garments that people once wore, making this both an art exhibition and a window into a time when the biggest names in art shaped how people dressed.
The Art of Everyday
The exhibition traces how artists transformed their work from gallery walls to daily life. The story begins with the Bloomsbury Group’s Omega Workshops in the 1910s, where Vanessa Bell and her contemporaries first challenged the separation between fine and applied art. This creative approach expanded after World War II, with artists like John Piper and Salvador Dalí bringing their distinctive styles into homes through textiles.
The movement’s ambition to create “a masterpiece in every home” led to fascinating developments - from Joan Miró dresses to Salvador Dalí ties. Picasso embraced this democratisation of art, though he drew the line at upholstery, noting that “Picassos may be leaned against, not sat on.”
Images (clockwise starting top left) The Rooster, Fuller Fabrics 1955 made after the work Le Coq 29-03-193 by Pablo Picasso © Number, Please?, Salvador Dalí © Salvador Dalí, Fundació Gala-Salvador Dalí, DACS 2024 Escharpe n1, Henri Matisse © Succession H. Matisse/ DACS 2024 Farmer’s Dinner, Joan Miró © Successió Miró / ADAGP, Paris and DACS London 2024
Looking Forward
Contemporary works by Damien Hirst and Howard Hodgkin sit alongside pieces by Picasso and Warhol, showing how this artistic practice continues today. The exhibition connects with the city’s collection, which houses works by several featured artists.
Fashion designer Zandra Rhodes, whose pieces appear in the exhibition, will visit the gallery on 6 March 2025 to discuss this intersection of art and textile with curator Dennis Nothdruft. The exhibition offers a unique lens through which to view the evolution of 20th-century art movements, from Cubism and Surrealism and on to to Pop Art, all through the medium of fabric.
Admission to Artist Textiles: £10 adults / £7 concessions and Friends of AAGM / £14 exhibition pass / children aged 12 and under free.
