Notes

Judith Mason had an excess of ideas when she designed the present lot: the picture plane is in complete harmony with, and a natural extension of, the multiple images Mason harnessed in designing the 33-metre-long tapestry, woven by Marguerite Stephens, commissioned for the entrance hall of the Royal Hotel in Durban in 1980. Gray crane birds in flight, pink flowers unfurling their delicate crown petals, and ammonites spiralling in eternal motion, lend a special dynamism to the work. The dynamism is enhanced by various strands of the exposed warp threads tied back to form dramatic drapes superimposed on the picture plane. The vast range of colour tones in the tapestry is created by the specially dyed woollen weft threads. Says Stephens: ‘The interaction of contrasting strengths of the artist-weaver discussion before commencing a tapestry is for me extremely stimulating. This process in the production of a tapestry I find necessary to re-establish the spirit, vitality and proper exploitation of the character and qualities peculiar to tapestry weaving’.¹

1. Marguerite Stephens – Weaver, catalogue accompanying an exhibition of her work at the Pretoria Art Museum, November to December 1984, unpaginated.