Ethel
Wright Mohamed designed the cover for the Smithsonian-National Park Service
Bicentennial Festival Program Book
The tapestry commissioned by the Smithsonian hung throughout the summer in the
reception area of the Festival grounds on the National Mall. It then became a
part of the permanent collection of the Division of Textiles in the Smithsonian
National Museum of History and Technology
'Increasingly
large numbers of Americans over the years have come to know and value your
unique tapestries. Those of us who have come to know you as a friend understand
that your art is a reflection of your depth, warmth and personal insight. On the
occasion of this Bicentennial event, your many friends at the National Museum
wish to pay tribute to a valued and deeply respected American artist of whom we
are all proud.'
Ralph
Rinzler
Director
Festival of American Folklife
Division of Performing Arts
July 1, 1976
Her
work has been exhibited at the Renwick Gallery of the National Collection of
Fine Arts, Smithsonian Institution - December 3,1976 through July 10, 1977
Stitch Pictures by Ethel Mohamed
'After the
death of her Lebanese husband in 1965 , Ethel Wright Mohamed began to create
needlework pictures and this year one of her works depicted the Bicentennial
activities of the Smithsonian's Festival of American Folklife.
Most of her
elaborately detailed pictures are about life at home in Belzoni, Mississippi,
and among the twelve extraordinarily colorful selections in this exhibition are
"Waiting for the Stork "with
the midwife and "My Pot of Gold"---the Mohammed's' treasure house of
children. There also are scenes of the colonization of America, The
Revolutionary War, and a Lebanese marital fable.
At
Renwick
Doris
W. Bowman
In Mississippi
Ethel
Wright Mohamed created a tapestry based on her impressions of the 1976 Folklife
Festival in Washington, DC. It now hangs in the State Historical Museum in the
Old Capitol at Jackson, Mississippi
Mississippi
Department of Archives and History
Jackson,
Mississippi published
a book of stitchery pictures by Ethel Wright Mohamed entitled My
Life in Pictures.1976
Edited
by Charlotte Capers and Olivia P. Collins
'Looking back
on the venerable traditions of embroidery documented in the Old Testament Books
of Exodus and Ezekiel and portrayed in the earliest Egyptian tomb paintings ,it
is gratifying to encounter a gifted, naïve artist who documents her
family life and personal impressions with open warmth and candor in the midst of
out complex, technological society.'
Taken
from the Foreword by:
S. Dillon Ripley
Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution
Washington, D.C. ,1976
'The
Mississippi Department of Archives and History is pleased to recognize and
honor the enchanting artistry of Mrs. Ethel Wright Mohamed. Her fresh
presentation, which provides a link for seven generations, confirms the
value and the importance of historic preservation in the United States'.
Taken
from the Introduction by:
Byrle
Kynerd
Director, State Historical Museum
Mississippi
Department
Of Archives and History
1976
The Mississippi
department of Archives and History is deeply indebted to Mrs. Mohamed for
her generosity in permitting the publication of her "pictures,"
with captions in her own tape-recorded word. As this is written Mrs.
Mohamed continues to stitch, and it is good to know that more of her
unique documentary art is being created.'
Taken
from the Acknowledgments by:
Elbert R. Hilliard
Director, Mississippi Department
of
Archives and History 1976
She
was invited to attend and her stitchery work
was exhibited at:
The
1976 Bicentennial Festival in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
The
1982 Worlds Fair in Knoxville , Tennessee
The
1984 World's Fair in New
Orleans, Louisiana
SITES
Smithsonian
Institution Traveling Exhibition Service
November
1987 - January 1990
The
Grand Generation
Memory,
Mastery , Legacy
'This seminal exhibition evokes the culture and creativity of older
Americans and advances our understanding of these elders, who comprise our
society's premier cohort of tradition bearers. Through the objects,
images, and words of the exhibition, we explore the beauty and meaning of
these mature talents.'
Taken from the Foreword:
Peter Seitel
Director
Office of Folklife Programs
Ellen Rose
Acting Director
Sites
'Most of all,
we are grateful to the folk artists and lenders for so generously sharing
with us their knowledge and their art. We hope this book and exhibition
will be a meeting ground on which viewers and readers may encounter not
only objects of enduring beauty and
worth but the persons, communities, and lives in which they are rooted.'
Taken
from Acknowledgements:
Mary
Hufford
Marjorie
Hunt
Steven
Zeitlin
Ethel
Mohamed
Belzoni,
Mississippi
"Three Stages of Life Embroidery
, 1984
42
3/4" L x 25 1/4" W
Lent
by the Jackson Heart Clinic, Jackson, Mississippi
Depression Days
Embroidery,
ca.. 1970
17"
L x 25 3/4 " W
The Storm Embroidery, ca.
1970
28"
L x 21 1/2' W
The New Baby
Embroidery, ca.. 197
More
about Sites
'On
her needlework pictures, Ethel Wright Mohamed (b.1906 of Belzoni,
Mississippi, embroiders scenes recalled from her own past. Sacred harp
singing, other folk traditions, and experiences from her life and her
family's life in Mississippi provide illustrations of a place and a way of
life. Thus her work is uniquely southern.'
Encyclopedia
of Southern Culture
Charles Reagan Wilson
&
William Ferris, Coeditors
She
was featured in the book
LOCAL COLOR
A sense of
Place in Folk Art
by William Ferris
With
a foreword by Robert Penn Warren
developed
by the
Center
for Southern Folklore
edited
by Brenda McCallum
McGraw
-Hill Book Company
1982
Four Women
Artists
Film produced
by William Ferris
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