Coverlet, "Electric" Pattern

Designer: Ruth Reeves (American, 1892–1966)
Retailer: W. & J. Sloane (American, 1843–1985)

1930

American Decorative Arts

Not on view

Ruth Reeves was a pioneering figure in modernist textile design in the United States. In the 1920s, she studied painting with Fernand Léger in Paris while simultaneously experimenting with techniques for printing and dyeing fabric. After returning to the United States in 1927, she established a studio near New York City to produce dynamic textiles inspired by contemporary art and modern life. Reeves first exhibited the Electric pattern in 1930 at the W. & J. Sloane department store in Manhattan. With its energetic, zigzagging shapes evocative of lightning bolts, the pattern was intended to be used for curtains or upholstery in a radio room, a then newly invented domestic space. This particular version was made into a coverlet for a lacquered steel bed that Reeves created for the Long Beach, Long Island, house of Louise and Glendon Allvine.

Medium

Cotton

Dimensions

74 1/8 × 41 1/8 in. (188.3 × 104.46 cm)

Credit Line

John P. Axelrod Collection, B.A. 1968

Accession Number

1995.49.1

Geography

Made in New City, New York

Culture

American

Period

20th century

Classification

Textiles

Disclaimer

Note: This electronic record was created from historic documentation that does not necessarily reflect the Yale University Art Gallery’s complete or current knowledge about the object. Review and updating of records is ongoing.

Provenance
Made for Louise and Glendon Allvine, Lond Beach, N.Y., 1930; Ruth Reeves, New Delhi, by 1966; transferred to the Estate of Ruth Reeves, New York, 1966-86; purchased by John P. Axelrod, Boston, 1986-95
Bibliography
  • American Art: Selections from the Yale University Art Gallery (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Art Gallery, 2023), 33, 216–17, no. 102, ill.
  • Sarah D. Coffin, Stephen Harrison, and Emily M. Orr, The Jazz Age: American Style in the 1920s, exh. cat. (Cleveland: Cleveland Museum of Art, 2017), 222–23, 358, no. 302, fig. 271
  • John Stuart Gordon et al., A Modern World: American Design from the Yale University Art Gallery, 1920–1950 (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Art Gallery, 2011), 65–66, no. 34
  • Marian Wardle, American Women Modernists: The Legacy of Robert Henri, 1910–1945, exh. cat. (Provo, Utah: Brigham Young University Museum of Art, 2005), 34–35, fig. 45
  • "Acquisitions, January 1994–December 1995," Yale University Art Gallery Bulletin (1995–96), 140
  • Alastair Duncan, American Art Deco (New York: Thames and Hudson, 1986), 141, ill.
Object copyright
Copyright Artist/Estate/Foundation
In Copyright
Additional information

Object/Work type

coverlets

Subject

Women designers

Technical metadata and APIs

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