Museum “Riga Art Nouveau Centre” in collaboration with Belgian textile designer and collector Marc Van Hoe and the Embassy of the Kingdom of Belgium invites to the exhibition “Summer of 1900. Textile designs as images”. The exhibition will occur in the museum “Riga Art Nouveau Centre” from the 8th of June, 2023 until 5th of November, 2023.
More than 50 textile designs and samples of the beginning of the 20th century will be presented in this exhibition. They characterize the development of textile design of the Art Nouveau period. The unique collection of Marc Van Hoe will be demonstrated in Latvia for the first time. The exhibition features drawings with stylization of various flowers and plants, which meet the requirements of Art Nouveau fashion and are intended for the industrial production of textiles. Textile designs stand out for their high artistic quality. Several of them were intended for textile factories that produced the novelty of the era – jacquard fabric for interior and furniture. The artists, using the modern means of that time - specially graphed paper, were able to apply and modify the developed drawing to the technical production process. The exhibition also includes several samples of fabrics, which stand out for their high artistic quality, encourage attention to the study of details and create aesthetic pleasure.
The collection of the Belgian textile designer and artist Marc Van Hoe is the result of many years of persistent work, collecting historical fabrics, their sketches and textile design drawings. The uniqueness of the created collection is evidenced by the Henri Van de Velde Award awarded to him. “By seeking out and collecting old textiles and applying the knowledge thus gained in contemporary fabrics, Marc has become a significant and versatile representative of this. The connections he makes between craftsmanship, visual art and design are fascinating and magnificent, and this makes him a designer, an artist, a collector, a seeker and a thinker who richly deserves to win a Henry van de Velde Award.”, the jury motived its choice in 2010.
The exhibition was created as a result of the long-term cooperation of the museum "Riga Art Nouveau Center", collector Marc Van Hoe and his family. The exhibition is supported by the Embassy of the Kingdom of Belgium.
