Eve Peri (1897-1966). Desert Flower, Mexico, c.1930s. Wool and silk yarn embroidery on linen panel. Panel measures 12.5 x 18 inches. Plexi box measures 14 x 19.75 x 1.25 inches. Minor scratches on vintage plexi box. Estate stamp en verso. Excellent condition with no damage or restoration.
Biography:
Born in Bangor, Maine, Eve Peri worked predominantly as an abstract fiber collage artist, creating embroidered compositions, wash drawings and paintings. A modernist who favored rich patterns and organic forms, Peri cut and assembled found textiles gathered from travels around the world. She lived and worked in New York, Mexico and Philadelphia with extended stays in London, Lisbon, Paris, and Rome. At a very young age, Peri learned embroidery, appliqué, stitching and quiltmaking techniques from her mother and aunts. As an artist working with these skills and as a designer with her second husband, the Columbian painter Alfonso Umana Mendez, she produced hand woven fabrics for interiors, theater and fashion. Although her visibility was eclipsed in the decades since her death, there is now a renewed interest in her art as a result of recent exhibitions at the Michael Rosenfeld Gallery, New York.
SELECTED MUSEUM COLLECTIONS Addison Gallery of American Art, Phillips Academy, Andover, MA Albin O. Kuhn Library & Gallery, The University of Maryland Baltimore County, MD American Craft Museum, New York, NY Bowdoin College Museum of Art, Brunswick, ME Comfort Gallery, Haverford College, Haverford, PA Cooper Hewitt Museum, New York, NY The Cooper Union, New York, NY Farnsworth Art Museum, Rockland, ME Portland Museum of Art, Portland, ME The Women’s Museum, Washington, DC Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, CT
AWARDS 1951 American Institute of Decorators, 1951 Citation of Merit 1952 Women in Art, Houston, TX
SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS 1937 Delphic Gallery, New York, NY 1942 Tommi Parzinger, New York, NY 1948 Addison Gallery of American Art, Phillips Academy, Andover, MA 1948 Eve Peri: Fabric Forms, Gallery E, Philadelphia Art Alliance, Philadelphia, PA 1950 Eve Peri: Fabric Forms, Hacker Gallery, New York, NY 1952 Everhart Museum, Scranton, OH Germantown Friends Library, Philadelphia, PA 1956 Watson and Bowler, Chicago, IL Thelma Tichenor, San Francisco, CA 1963 Pitture di Eve Peri, Galleria Anthea, Rome, Italy 1965 J. Walter Thompson Gallery, New York, NY; 1966 1982 Eve Peri: A Retrospective, Lawrence Oliver Gallery, Philadelphia, PA 1991 Eve Peri: A Retrospective in Painting, Collage and Fabric, Comfort Gallery, Haverford College, Haverford, PA 1996 Eve Peri, Michael Rosenfeld Gallery, New York, NY Eve Peri: A Modernist Spirit, Albin O. Kuhn Library & Gallery, The University of Maryland Baltimore County, Baltimore, MD 2004 Eve Peri: Fiber Artist, Farnsworth Art Museum, Rockland, ME
SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS 1937 The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH 1939 Contemporary Decorative Art, The Toledo Museum of Art, Toledo, OH 1940 Architectural League, New York, NY 1948 Miscellaneous Textiles, Addison Gallery of American Art, Phillips Academy, Andover, MA 1949 An Exhibition for Modern Living, The Detroit Institute of Arts, Detroit, MI 1951 Alter Ego: Masks: Their Use and Art, The Cooper Union, New York, NY 1952 Women in Art, Contemporary Arts Museum, Houston, TX Hotel el Panama, Panama 1957 Second Invitational Craft Exhibit, Art Center Association Gallery, Louisville, KY Wall Hangings and Rugs, The Museum of Contemporary Crafts, New York, NY 1958 Contemporary Wall Hangings, American Federation of Arts Traveling Exhibition Services (traveling exhibition) 1962 Gallerie d’Aubusson, Paris, France Little Gallery, Philadelphia, PA 1963 Little Gallery, Philadelphia, PA 1966 Creative Contemporary Embroidery, Old Westbury Gardens, Long Island, NY 1995 Collage: Made in America, Michael Rosenfeld Gallery, New York, NY 1996 Fiber and Form: The Woman’s Legacy, Michael Rosenfeld Gallery, New York, NY Craft in the Machine Age: The History of Twentieth Century American Craft, 1920-1945, American Craft Museum, New York, NY 1999 Unrecognized Talent, Lee Findlay, Jr., New York, NY 2000 Michael Rosenfeld Gallery: The First Decade, Michael Rosenfeld Gallery, New York, NY
EVE PERI (1897-1966)
CHRONOLOGY
1897 Born in Bangor, Maine to George Perry and Minnie Alpine. There was an early marriage and divorce. No records are available.
1931 Lived in Mexico with her second husband Alfonso Umana Mendez, a designer for Fred Leighton. Attended dinner party in Tiaquepaque, near Guadaldjara with guests including Witter Byner and John McAndrews, formerly of Museum of Modern Art. Expressed active interest in Matisse.
1939 Exhibited embroidered textiles in Contemporary Decorative Art at The Toledo Museum of Art in Toledo, OH. Exhibition catalogue illustrated Walk after the Rain, an embroidered tapestry.
1939 Divorced Umana.
1939 Passport issued c/o American Express, Paris. Living at 48 East 9th Street, New York, NY.
1939 Paris. In Paris, Peri first experimented with combining fabrics with her embroidery works.
1939 Lisbon.
1942 Passport renewed.
1946-50, 52, 53 Lived at 61 Park Avenue, New York, NY.
1948 Miscellaneous Textiles, Addison Gallery of American Art, Phillips Academy, Andover, MA; group exhibition with Ethel Beam, Florence Satsman exhibiting 27 works by Peri. Two exhibitions grouped under the same title: Silk Prints manufactured by the Onondaga Silk Company along with the American paintings on which they were based and an exhibition showcasing projects from various schools done by students of all ages.
1948 Studio visit with Alexander Kostellow, chair of Industrial Design Department at Pratt Institute, who then writes an essay on Peri’s work for her solo exhibition at the Philadelphia Art Alliance.
1948-49 Eve Peri: Fabric Forms, Gallery E, Philadelphia Art Alliance, Philadelphia, PA.
1949 Saved Thomas Mann’s article on Goethe.
1949 An Exhibition for Modern Living, The Detroit Institute of Arts, Detroit, MI; exhibition catalogue illustrated by Saul Steinberg. Peri’s address listed in Index of Exhibitors under “Textiles”; Eve Peri, 61 Park Avenue, New York 16, New York.
1949 Attended Miro show at the Pierre Matisse Gallery. Quoted Matisse “The purer the colors, the stronger they act on the deepest feelings.”
1950 Eve Peri: Fabric Forms, Hacker Gallery, New York, NY; reviewed in Art Digest, May 1950 by Doris Brian. Exhibited abstract, unframed wall hangings and such decorative objects as couch cushions. Second review, Art News, May 1950, p. 50, initialed A.R.; notes “Genesis” and price range of $200-$450. Third review, The New York Times, April 18, 1950; highlights “Red Space”
1951 American Institute of Decorators, 1951 Citation of Merit; given for abstract machine embroidery and appliqué on fabric; article by Betty Pepis, “Trial by Jury,” The New York Times Magazine, March 23, 1952. All products juried were offered for consumer sale no later than January 1, 1951. Peri was among 12 winners chosen from “several hundred entries.” Article describes jury process and illustrates winning designs. Peri won a citation for “novelties.” “There were six of these [citations], and they were commended by the judges as much for their originality of concept as for their excellence of design.”
1952 Arundell Clarke, New York, NY carries work by Peri including appliquéd fabric panels ranging in price from $35-$60 a yard; highlighted in the New Yorker, May 10, 1952.
1952 Alter Ego: Masks: Their Use and Art, The Cooper Union, New York, NY; review, “200 Changes of Face,” from unknown magazine. Exhibition included historical masks including examples from the Caroline Islands, South America, Melanesia, Africa, and Alaska. Modern masks included those by Margaret Severn (a Follies dancer), Julio de Diego, James Light (designs for The Great God Brown). Eve Peri is mentioned as follows: “We can only admire the indomitable creative spirit which made Eve Peri concoct the gaily-woven face across the way when confined for a week to a Lisbon hotel with a fierce siege of the hives. [Mask to Hide the Blotches of Hives].
1952 Hotel el Panama, Panama; two articles from Panama (one in Spanish, one in English). Two week exhibition curated by Orlean Stone, interior decorator and wife of hotel architect Edward D. Stone. The English article from The Panama American – An Independent Daily Newspaper, no date, calls attention to Peri’s “fabric forms”. O. Stone is cited as being “one of the first interior consultants to visit the Isthmus.”
1952 Patricia Long, “Germantown Artist Designs Sculptured Fabrics,” Germantown Courier, Thursday, October 2, 1952, vol. 16, no. 43, pp. 15 and 22; Peri cited as living at 161 West Penn Street. Mentions a mask [A Mask to Hide the Blotches of Hives] that “received favorable mention the Cooper Union Gallery in New York” and that “later, two of four fabrics she designed for interior decoration won prizes at the American Institute of Decorators Show…New York.” Goes on to say that those ‘fabrics were later exhibited at the Good Design Show in Chicago.” Dealers listed: Arundell Clark, New York and Stanley Wollner, Philadelphia.
1952 Saved an article by Elizabeth Bowen.
1953 Saved article on Sean O’Casey.
1953 Women in Art, Contemporary Arts Museum, 302 Dallas Avenue, Houston, Texas; Invitation to members reception and preview of the exhibition illustrates two hand knitting together the following text: “A survey of women’s work, from the United States and abroad, in bookbinding, ceramics, china, cloth, pictures, enamels, encaustics, glass, intarsias, jewelry, lithographs, needlework, painting, plastics, photography, textiles, wallpaper and weaving. The exhibition includes custom made items and designs intended for mass production. May 7th through May 27th.”
1953 Second passport issued.
1956 Watson and Boaler, Chicago, IL; group exhibition with
Karl Mann...