Harwood and Sophie Steiger
   HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

Harwood Steiger (1900–1980) and Sophie Steiger (''unknown''–1980) were American
textile Textile is an umbrella term that includes various fiber-based materials, including fibers, yarns, filaments, threads, different fabric types, etc. At first, the word "textiles" only referred to woven fabrics. However, weaving is not the ...
artists and
printmaker Printmaking is the process of creating work of art, artworks by printing, normally on paper, but also on fabric, wood, metal, and other surfaces. "Traditional printmaking" normally covers only the process of creating prints using a hand proce ...
s. They are best known for their desert textile art of the 20th century.


Life

During the 1950s, 1960, and 1970s Steiger was name associated with Southern Arizona fabric design. Together Harwood and Sophie Steiger would run the Tubac Steiger studio producing extraordinary silkscreen fabric design that would become synonymous with the Southern Arizona style in the post World War II era.


Harwood Steiger

Harwood Steiger was born in 1900 in Fairport,
New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States New York may also refer to: Film and television * '' ...
. He studied painting at the Rochester Institute of Technology and took his first job as a colorist in a dye plant. That job would affect his later work in life. He then enrolled in the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, taking every course they had to offer. After moving to
New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
in the 1920s to make a name for himself, Harwood was swept into the depression, like the rest of the country. Undaunted, the entrepreneurial young man opened his own art studio and began teaching classes. In the early 1930s, Harwood’s work was gaining acclaim. Continuing to teach, he opened a summer art school at
Martha’s Vineyard Martha's Vineyard, often simply called the Vineyard, is an island in the Northeastern United States, located south of Cape Cod in Dukes County, Massachusetts, known for being a popular, affluent summer colony. Martha's Vineyard includes the sm ...
called The Steiger Paint Group. His artistic style drew on the social mores and themes of the era. Like Thomas Hart Benton, who also summered on Marta’s Vineyard, Harwood’s artistic style was on the forefront of the Regionalist art movement. He worked primarily in watercolor, sculpting his fluid figures in thick washes of color, using sharp dark lines to give his work a punctuating weight. His art explored the everyday experiences of ordinary people, a stylistic choice associated with the New Deal art projects. In 1938, Harwood received a commission from the Section of Painting and Sculpture and completed a mural for the post office in
Fort Payne Fort Payne is a city in and county seat of DeKalb County, Alabama, DeKalb County, in northeastern Alabama, United States. At the 2020 United States Census, 2020 census, the population was 14,877. European-American settlers gradually developed th ...
,
Alabama (We dare defend our rights) , anthem = "Alabama (state song), Alabama" , image_map = Alabama in United States.svg , seat = Montgomery, Alabama, Montgomery , LargestCity = Huntsville, Alabama, Huntsville , LargestCounty = Baldwin County, Al ...
. In 2001 the mural was relocated to Hunt Hall, part of the Fort Payne Hosiery Museum.


Sophie Steiger

Harwood’s Martha’s Vineyard summer studio drew students from all over the country, including an attractive young schoolteacher named Sophie, an artist in her own right. She came from the country, with an artistic curiosity about botanicals and herbs. Her art reflected this interest – plants and flowers were a central theme of her painting, utilizing watercolor to create delicate washes of tone and depth. The couple married.


Tubac, Arizona

In 1956, after a trip through northern
Mexico Mexico (Spanish: México), officially the United Mexican States, is a country in the southern portion of North America. It is bordered to the north by the United States; to the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; to the southeast by Guatema ...
, the Steigers fell in love with Arizona, and built a home and studio in
Tubac Tubac is a census-designated place (CDP) in Santa Cruz County, Arizona, United States. The population was 1,191 at the 2010 census. The place name "Tubac" is an English borrowing from a Hispanicized form of the O'odham name ''Cuwak'', which tr ...
, a small village 45 miles south of Tucson. The climate, history, and landscape reshaped their artistic interests. They also developed an interest in the technique of silkscreen, and fabric design.


Fabric printing

The couple worked closely in the design, development, and production. Their fabrics were a hit, earning national and international attention. Harwood would draw a design, and Sophie would decide if the work should be transferred to fabric, choosing the type of fabric and its base color. Harwood chose the silkscreen dye and would cut the designs into lacquer films. The stencils were placed on the silk screens and the dye brushed though the screens, a separate film and screen for each color. The new fabric design was a departure from Harwood’s earlier work but retained a familiar graphic sensibility. These new functional works reflected both Harwood and Sophies’s artistic interests – dozens of fabrics were decorative abstractions of botanical themes, others ruminations on desert animals and cactus. The couple produced 36 yards of fabric at a time, repeating the silkscreen process over and over down their long studio table.


Legacy

Over three decades, through hundreds of fabric designs, the Steigers created a vocabulary of graphic fabric patterning that became part of southern Arizona style. Their work offered a functional modernist interpretation of the Southwest. Although the studio closed in the 1980s after Sophie’s death, their influence is still present, not just in the tablecloths, curtains, dresses, and upholstery that sprinkle the interiors of houses throughout Tucson, but in a rich sophisticated style that continues to express the vision of post World War II southern Arizona.Sowell, Carol, Artist's banners set for Tubac's festival, Arizona Daily Star, January 31, 1980 The Steiger silkscreens are now part of the permanent collections of Pima Community College in Tucson, Arizona and the American Textile History Museum in Lowell, Massachusetts.


Artwork

The Steigers were designers who worked primarily in painting and textiles.


Bibliography

* Tucson Daily Citizen, Harwood Steiger Tucson Daily Citizen Art Prizes Awards, Feb 4, 1961 * Harwood Steiger, Tucson Daily Citizen, Festival Time at Tubac, Page 12 January 32, 1965 * Arizona Highways Magazine, Harwood Steiger, Volume 42, 1966 * Beeaff, Dianne Ebertt, The Southwestern Rhythms of Harwood Steiger Fabrics, Fiber Arts, April 1986. * Green Valley News, Color and Originality a Specialty, November 30, 1967.


See also

* Fiber art


References


External links


Harwood Steiger Book Project
{{DEFAULTSORT:Steiger, Harwood and Sophie 20th-century American artists 20th-century American printmakers 20th-century American women artists Artists from New York (state) Textile artists American women printmakers American textile designers Artists from Tucson, Arizona 20th-century textile artists 20th-century women textile artists Section of Painting and Sculpture artists