Now that I am deep into my Frida Hansen transparent tapestry research, and many of my weaving friends are aware of the technique, new clues turn up in my email box regularly. Recently Tommye Scanlin sent me a note with a photo she ran across in an old magazine, The Weaver, from 1940.
Hmmm… That is clearly woven in Frida Hansen’s signature wool open warp technique. How did Viola Quigley in Ohio come to weave it? The long bird plumage of Quigley’s design echos the feathers in this bird from Frida Hansen’s Clematis and Birds of Paradise weaving.
A bit of digging turned up the Norwegian connection I sought. When Viola Quigley became the first weaving instructor at the Memphis Academy of Arts in 1946, a profile in the Memphis Press-Scimitar ran a lengthy profile, “Lost Arts of Spinning and Weaving to Return: Centuries-Old Methods to be Revived at Memphis Academy Classes.” (Saturday, October 6, 1946)
Viola studied weaving at Husflidforening, a school in Bergen, including tapestry weaving from a noted Norwegian weaver, Ragna Breivik. I don’t have exact dates, but it would have been during a time when Frida Hansen’s transparency technique was popular.
Another article, from the Cleveland Plain Dealer (Sunday, June 6, 1937), mentioned Quigley’s participation in the May Show at the Cleveland Museum of Art. “Weaving by Viola W. Quigley and Mary Ann MacMillan includes a table runner in homespun flax…a tapestry panel and a pair of transparent tapestry drapes.” Perhaps more transparencies will turn up!