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IN A REMARKABLE CAREER, HELENA HERNMARCK HAS PRODUCED an oeuvre of tapestries unsurpassed in visual imagery and technical realization. "Monumental and Intimate: Tapestries by Helena Hernmarck," her beautifully mounted retrospective at the Museum of the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York City, was therefore especially welcome, not least because it confirmed the artist's stature.* Since a major part of her work is located in corporate settings, she has had less name recognition than some fiber artists whose meteoric rise and moments of fame are quickly followed by oblivion. Hernmarck emerges as an artist of steady evolution with a tasting body of work unique in her field.
Hernmarck was born in Sweden in 1941 and educated at the University College of Arts, Crafts and Design in Stockholm. Her schooling combined the theory of art and aesthetics with the solid, technical expertise associated with the old-world guild tradition. A thorough understanding of weave construction and the loom's capabilities laid the foundation for her exploration of uncharted territory within the heritage of tapestry weaving. Instead of the Gobelin technique, Hernmarck uses as background a discontinuous plain weave on top ofwhich she hand picks a supplementary pattern weft, accordingto a grid which at one end totally covers the plain weave (soumac stitch) and allows it to become increasingly exposed. This approach, coupled with her unerring sense of composition and her gift as a colorist, makes Hernmarck's artistic vision unique in the world of textiles. It is a vision of dualities.
She burst on the scene during the 6os, when fiber art exploded-she had moved to Canada in 1964 and would live there for almost a decade -participating in the prestigious Lausanne Biennales of 1965,'67 and '69. But unlike many, she eschewed sculptural forms of expression, adhering instead to pictorial tapestries with their allegiance to the wall. Even then, her works were anything but traditional. Reflecting the iconography of pop culture, Hernmarck's early black-and-white hangings, resembling gigantic newspaper clippings, reveal great compositional and technical skill. The graininess of cheap newsprint is emphasized by the overshot technique, which enhances the immediacy of the image in a manner akin to but predating computer pixels. Other tapestries ofthe 6os,such as Newspapers, 1968, a unified...