Bauhaus Mixed Media

Born in Basel, Switzerland, in 1927, Silvia Stucky Heyden began her artistic career drawing and playing the violin at an early age. Her childhood dream to build violins was thwarted because girls at that time were not accepted as apprentices for violin-makers, so instead she practiced her violin all the more passionately. She studied textiles at the School of Arts in Zurich, directed by Johannes Itten in the Bauhaus tradition, under Elsi Giauque from 1948-1953. She won the Achievement Award of the City of Zurich. In 1954, Silvia married Dr. Siegfried Heyden and spent the following years with her daughter Françoise and son Daniel in Philadelphia, Berlin, and Zurich. When she was given a large commission for the Expo-Suisse in Lausanne, Switzerland in 1962, she bought her first upright tapestry loom and experimented with different weaving techniques in numerous tapestries. In 1965, Silvia completed another large commission for the Gimnasio di Locarno in Switzerland. Following her husband’s new position as Professor of Medicine at Duke University, the family moved to Durham, NC in 1966. Here she continued to explore new forms of weaving, refine her modern compositions in hundreds of abstract tapestries, and play the violin with local orchestras. This fusion of weaving and music culminated in 1968 when she created a 100’ x 10’ commission for the Bankers Trust Company in New York entitled “Sonata with a Castle Theme in Three Movements.” Being of Swiss German extraction and having studied ‘Visuelle Kommunikation’, she was influenced a lot by the Bauhaus ideals of Anni Albers, Ida Kerkovius and Gunta Stölzl as well as by Paul Klee and his paintings with squares and triangles. Silvia had her first major exhibit at the Duke University Museum of Art in 1972, followed by numerous other exhibits in the US, Switzerland and Germany. Between 1973 and 1993 she completed a number of major commissions, the most important one of which was for the Concert Hall of the City of Bremen, Germany, in 1977, called “Die Glocke” or “The Bell.” Her move back to Switzerland, this time to the Italian part on the Lago Maggiore in 1993, led her to play with the String Orchestra of Locarno and to an important exhibition at the Textile Museum of St. Gallen in 1994 and then the Palazzo Oppesso in Turin, Italy in 1999. In 2002 she completed a tapestry for the Town Hall in San Nazzaro, Switzerland before moving back to Durham, NC in 2005. Her series of tapestries inspired by her walks along the local Eno River were the subject of Kenny Dalsheimer’s acclaimed hour-long documentary entitled “A Weaverly Path” in 2011. 1964 bought her first tapestry loom for a large commission for the Expo-Suisse in Lausanne, Switzerland 1972 first major exhibit: Duke University of Art Museum, Durham, N.C. 1974-92 numerous large exhibits and commissions in the US and Europe 1993 moved to Lago Maggiore in Tessin, Switzerland, into her parental home and became a member of the String Orchester of Locarno Awards: 1972 first Prize Award, Mint Museum of Art, Charlotte, NC 1974 First Prize Award, North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh, NC Tapestries in public Buildings 1997 "Die Glocke" Concert Hall of City of Bremen, Germany 1991 Maryland Art in Public Architecture Competition, Washington, DC: Community Recreation Center, Chevy Chase, MD 1988 Renaissance Plaza, Greensboro, NC 1988 Duke Power Building, Charlotte, NC 1987 Art in State Buildings, the Caswell Building, Raleigh, NC 1984 Davis Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, NC 1983 Round Hill Community Church, Greenwich, CT 1980 Judea Reformed Congregation, Durham, NC 1976 City Hall, Durham, NC 1975 Duke University Rare Book Library, Durham, NC 1968 Bankers Trust Company, New York, NY 1966 Hospital Bombach, Zürich, Switzerland 1965 Liceo di Locarno, Switzerland 1998 Museo Tessile, Chieri/To, Italy 2001 Municipio di San Nazzaro, Ti /CH Permanent Collections The Gallery of Art and Design, North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh, NC Landis & Gyr Foundation, Zug, Switzerland Textilmuseum St. Gallen, Switzerland Durham County Library, Durham, NC Williams College Museum, Williamstown, MA Mint Museum of Art, Charlotte, NC The Equitable Life Assurance, Art Society of United States, New York, NY Mary Lou Stevenson Collection, Princeton, NJ book by Silvia Heyden...