Painting Pictures with Fabric

By Wolf Von Eckardt

The art of tapestry weaving, which is as old as civilization itself, reached an aesthetic peak during the Renaissance, especially in the manufactory founded by the Parisian dye worker Jean Gobelin. In that era, no European palace was deemed properly palatial without its Gobelins in halls and stairways.

Nowadays tapestry weavers try to make modern corporate headquarters look properly palatial. And where the Renaissance craftsmen typically copied famous works by painters like Raphael, most contemporary weavers follow the lead of those 20th century painters and sculptors who have worked in an abstract mode. Their credo is "honest" use of materials. It is "dishonest" to use fibers as if they were paint, to represent specific images.

One of the most prominent and popular of U.S. weavers, Helena Hernmarck, has set herself totally against this modern orthodoxy. Hernmarck weaves an unabashed photorealism, often actually working from photographs. This may sound like kitsch. But when observed and contemplated day in, day out, Hernmarck's transformations of photo images into large wool, linen and cotton thread weavings are often stunning and always pleasurable artistic experiences. They are, in fact, a sort of return to the pictorial tapestry tradition of the Renaissance.

Hernmarck's work often conveys high emotional drama. In Sailing, which she created in 1976 for the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, it is the drama of grand romantic painting. A ship's sails billow to their utmost; the sailors on deck strain as fiercely as the wind itself. By contrast, her giant (20 ft. by 11 ft.) tapestries Poppies and Bluebonnets (1979) for an office building in Dallas have the lazy, midsummer-day haze of a Monet.

Such works faithfully reproduce the characteristics of a camera's-eye view, including the out-of-focus background and prismatic light blurs, but the effect is different from photos and even more so from painted murals. The weaving process, with its interlaced wefts and warps, gives the fabric a subtle play of light and shade and adds the fascination of texture. Hernmarck's tapestries thus add warmth, a reminder of nature, to the sometimes chill corporate setting, enhancing the architecture rather than merely decorating it.

In addition, representational themes enable Hernmarck to create tapestries with a specific meaning for their place and purpose. She works out the theme, as well as the size and general character of her work, in consultation with the companies and architects she works for. She prefers to have her tapestries considered at the very inception of a building as an integral part of its design. A good example is the piece that earned her national renown in 1973, the Carp tapestry, which she wove for the Deere & Co. headquarters in Moline, Ill., designed by Eero Saarinen. The theme was suggested by then Deere Board Chairman William Hewitt because the company had just received a gift of 300 colorful carp for its pond from its Japanese supplier. Hernmarck wove a shimmering multicolored hanging that appears translucent and can be viewed from both sides, as if the sparkling fish were swimming in water.

The Swedish-born Hernmarck, 43, works with two assistants in a large studio in Ridgefield, Conn., where she lives with her husband, Industrial Designer Niels Diffrient. The studio features a wall with 99 bins storing some 2,000 hues of dyed wool. Some of her tapestries have used as many as 550 colors. An average lobby wall hanging takes her six months to weave; from the first conception to installation is usually a year and a half.

Owner and president of Helena Hernmarck Tapestries, Inc., Hernmarck is as meticulous in her business methods as in her art. She started her career in the 1960s by systematically canvassing the country's leading architects, who in turn put her in touch with their corporate clients. She can make an effective presentation in exactly five minutes and prides herself on working strictly within budget and schedule.

Now Hernmarck feels ready to try something new in addition to her corporate commissions. Says she: "I think I want to start doing smaller, residential work on a speculative basis." A different scale might lead her to interesting new forms. But corporate America will continue to want its Hernmarcks, much as European royalty wanted its Gobelins.