Mariska Karasz (1898 in

Budapest Budapest (, ; ) is the capital and most populous city of Hungary. It is the ninth-largest city in the European Union by population within city limits and the second-largest city on the Danube river; the city has an estimated population ...

Hungary Hungary ( hu, Magyarország ) is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Spanning of the Pannonian Basin, Carpathian Basin, it is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine to the northeast, Romania to the east and southeast, Serbia to the ...

– August 27, 1960 in Danbury, Connecticut) was an American fashion designer, author, and

textile artist Textile arts are arts and crafts that use plant, animal, or synthetic fibers to construct practical or decorative objects. Textiles have been a fundamental part of human life since the beginning of civilization. The methods and materials u ...

. She had a passion for fashion design and created colorful, patterned garments largely inspired by the folk art of her native country. Her abstract wall hangings mixing fibers such as silk, cotton, wool, and hemp with horsehair and wood garnered her extensive national, and even international, attention. Critics repeatedly praised her for her skillful and unusual use of color, her creative combinations of materials, and her inspiring efforts to promote a modern approach to embroidery.

Biography

Karasz learned to sew as a young girl in Hungary. She immigrated to New York City in 1914 at the age of sixteen. Karasz was the younger sister of industrial designer and ''

New Yorker New Yorker or ''variant'' primarily refers to: * A resident of the State of New York ** Demographics of New York (state) * A resident of New York City ** List of people from New York City * ''The New Yorker'', a magazine founded in 1925 * '' The ...

'' cover artist

Ilonka Karasz Ilonka Karasz (July 13, 1896 – May 26, 1981), was a Hungarian-American designer and illustrator known for avant-garde industrial design and for her many ''New Yorker'' magazine covers. Early life and education Karasz was born in the Hungarian c ...

. She taught herself embroidery, utilizing her family, animals, and the natural world surrounding her studio in Brewster, New York, as subject matter. As her talent developed, her pieces became increasingly abstract and refined.https://craftcouncil.org/post/mariska-karaszs-adventures-stitchery American Craft Council Mariska soon established a successful career as a fashion designer. Her foreign background and new American identity defined her custom clothing for women in the 1920s, which combined Hungarian

folk Folk or Folks may refer to: Sociology *Nation *People * Folklore ** Folk art ** Folk dance ** Folk hero ** Folk music *** Folk metal *** Folk punk *** Folk rock ** Folk religion * Folk taxonomy Arts, entertainment, and media * Folk Plus or Fo ...

elements with a modern American style. In the early 1930s, after her marriage to Donald Peterson and the births of her two daughters, Solveig and Rosamond, Karasz began designing modern children's clothing, which was admired by parents, scholars, and critics for its practicality and originality. Her career in fashion ended in the early 1940s, following a studio fire and the entry of the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...

into World War II. Mariska Karasz died in 1960, aged 62 years.

Artistic career

In 1947, during the rise of American studio craft and abstract expressionism, Karasz began creating embroidered wall hangings. She exhibited her work in museums and galleries across the county, in over 50 solo shows during the 1950s. She also authored the book ''Adventures in Stitches'' in 1949 (republished in an expanded version in 1959), an influential book on creative needlework, and served as guest needlework editor for ''

House Beautiful ''House Beautiful'' is an interior decorating magazine that focuses on decorating and the domestic arts. First published in 1896, it is currently published by the Hearst Corporation, who began publishing it in 1934. It is the oldest still-publi ...

'' from 1952-1953. The first retrospective of her work took place at the

Georgia Museum of Art The Georgia Museum of Art is an art museum in Athens, Georgia, United States, associated with the University of Georgia (UGA). The museum is both an academic museum and, since 1982, the official art museum of the state of Georgia. The permanent co ...

from January 20 to April 15, 2007. In 2010 her work was included in the exhibition "Textiles Recycled/Reimagined" at the Baltimore Museum of Art.Textiles Recycled/Reimagined at the Baltimore Museum of Art
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Publications

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References

Callahan, Ashley: ''Modern Threads: Fashion and Art by Mariska Karasz''. Athens, GA: Georgia Museum of Art, 2007.Biography at the Smithsonian American Art Museum
retrieved 28 June 2007 *

External links

"Modern Threads: Fashion and Art by Mariska Karasz" shortlisted by the Costume Society of America
{{DEFAULTSORT:Karasz, Mariska 1898 births 1960 deaths American textile designers American women fashion designers American fashion designers Hungarian women fashion designers 20th-century American women artists People from Danbury, Connecticut 20th-century women textile artists 20th-century textile artists Hungarian emigrants to the United States American embroiderers