Untitled (Embroidered Bedspread)

They [the embroideries] are like symphonies that move and develop and change and contain a lifetime of growth, of power, and tenderness; of sharp contrasts and delicate nuances.
--Marguerite Zorach

Here Marguerite Zorach used delicately colored threads to illustrate an intricate motif depicting personal familial scenes based on her own life. She holds her baby daughter Dahlov at lower left. Within the bottom right scene, she depicts her baby son Tessim with Dahlov as a child. She created this work at the request of Mrs. Nathan J. Miller, who let Zorach choose the themes and imagery. Zorach's many sales, like this one, helped support her young family and even allowed them to purchase a summer home in Maine in 1923.
Zorach began experimenting with embroidery after her travels abroad as a young artist. Influenced by the avant-garde artists she met in Paris and their exploration of color, she found paint's colors to be tired and dull. Wool, in contrast, was a new world of brilliant colors with more possibilities--the artist would search through her collection of wools to find the perfect hue.