Textiles
11,000 Works, 1,200 Digitized

A remarkable range of geography, tradition and technique is represented in the Museums' textile collection. Highlights include fine fashionable costume from the 18th century to the present, one of the most important collections of European tapestries in the United States, and treasures from the Caroline and H. McCoy Jones Collection, including the most important group of Anatolian kilims outside Turkey and six outstanding Uzbek embroideries. Two recent additions to the collection are an elaborate Egungun costume, made by the Oyo subgroup of the Yoruba people, used in ceremonies that honor their ancestors, and a contemporary tapestry by Polish artist Magdalena Abakanowicz.

The Textile Department was recently given a group of early North Indian and Central Asian silks by San Francisco collectors George and Marie Hecksher. The Heckshers have pledged their entire collection, which contains superb examples of early Turkmen and Turkish carpet weaving, early silks from throughout Inner Asia, and resist-dyed and painted Indian trade textiles, to the Fine Arts Museums.

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Contact Information

Jill D'Alessandro
Associate Curator of Textiles
jdalessandro@famsf.org
415.750.3533

Museum Publications

• Traditional Textiles of the Andes: Life and Cloth in the Highlands. The Jeffrey Appleby Collection of Andean Textiles
• Five Centuries of Tapestry from The Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco
• Anatolian Kilims: The Caroline and H. McCoy Jones Collection
• New Look to Now: French Haute Couture 1947-1987
• Tent & Town: Rugs and Embroideries from Central Asia - The H. McCoy Jones Collection
• Between the Black Desert and the Red: Turkmen Carpets from the Wiedersperg Collection