JAN YOORS
Jan Yoors was one of the most important textile artists of the 20th century, as well as a photographer, sculptor and painter. Born in Antwerp, Belgium, to a cultured, liberal family of artists, he studied at London University after World War II and was introduced to the art of tapestry, beginning a life-long study of the world’s great weaving traditions, from Aubusson to Samarkand. In 1950 Yoors settled in New York City and set up a studio with a 15-foot vertical loom where his designs were woven into tapestries of dyed Persian wool by skilled artisans under his supervision. In 1959 Art in America magazine nominated him as one of the new talents in the USA. Further recognition came when he represented the United States at the International Biennial of Contemporary Tapestries in Lausanne, Switzerland in 1962 and 1965. His early work was largely figurative but became increasingly abstract in his later years. In recent years, he has had close to a dozen solo exhibitions across Europe and the United States including a major retrospective at the FeliXart Museum in Belgium and at the Baker Museum in Florida, with accompanying catalogues. Yoors’ work is found in the permanent collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Arts and Design, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Smithsonian Institution’s American Art Museum, Archives of American Art, and the National Museum of African American History and Culture. His tapestries have recently received coverage in the New York Times, Modern Magazine, Art in America, and Metropolis Magazine. His work was most recently featured in Architectural Digest, Vogue, and Elle Décor.
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