Textile Samples c. 1938

Here we have three textile samples by Edmond Lorts, which he may have pinned to a board while imagining the possibilities of his work. I’m always struck by the intimacy of this kind of piece – like, what was Lorts thinking as he made it? Was he troubled by a lack of ideas or was he bursting with them? Did he feel stuck on a specific image or was he moving smoothly between motifs? I’m drawn to the reddish-browns. Take the bottom sample: it's like a Rorschach test and a deconstructed leaf. And then there’s the middle sample, where the white flower pops, creating a rhythm across the surface. I like to think of Lorts experimenting, sampling, in dialogue with historical textiles, but also pushing towards something new.