ART HISTORY EVENTS
Exhibition—Sad Purple and Mauve: books and manuscripts about historic textile dyes
Organized by Eberly Family Special Collections Library and The Center for Virtual/Material Studies
September 14, 2023 through January 15, 2024
Opening reception: September 14, 2023, 4–6 p.m., in the Mann Assembly Room, 103 Paterno Library
The history of textile dyes offers a window into some of humanity’s greatest achievements as well as its most devastating failures. The development of dyestuff has involved the ingenuity of farmers, housewives, apothecaries, and modern chemists. To exploit lucrative dye markets, people have formed secret societies and cartels, excommunicated people, colonized nations, and enslaved populations.
This exhibition of books and manuscripts aims to showcase the social and material aspects of fabric dye. The objects on display span centuries (from the 1600s to the present) and cultures (Japan, Mexico, Scotland, Indonesia, Mali, the Mid-Atlantic United States, France, and Switzerland). Penn State scholars associated with the exhibition will be dying cloth according to historic methods for display.