Wallcovering Fabric, GR Wouw Wallpaper

GR Wouw illustrates Claudy Jongstra’s interest in reintroducing historic dye plants, such as madder and weld, to the Netherlands. Jongstra planted a research garden specifically devoted to dye plants, and has studied with dye masters to learn historic techniques. GR Wouw is dyed with weld, a yellow-green dye indigenous to the region. GR Wouw is Jongstra’s first commercially available wallcovering with a paper backing, although many of her architectural collaborations have included textiles applied to walls in the manner of wallpaper.
Jongstra studied fashion design at the Academy of Art in Utrecht, Netherlands, and established her own design studio after graduating in 1989. In 1994, upon seeing an exhibition on felt at the TextielMuseum in Tilburg, she became fascinated with its fabrication process and has worked exclusively in felt ever since, creating extraordinary felted fabrics for fashion designers such as John Galliano, Christian Lacroix, and Donna Karan, and for architects and designers such as Steven Holl, Will Bruder, Jasper Morrison, and Marcel Wanders. Jongstra is best known for her Drenthe Heath felts, already represented in the museum’s collection (2005-3-1 and 2005-3-2), which are characterized by their raw, primitive quality, with long locks of curly fleece still intact.
Jongstra’s work is held in the collections of museums including the TextielMuseum in Tilburg; the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Victoria & Albert Museum, London; and the De Pont Museum, Tilburg. Jongstra’s work has also been commissioned for major architectural projects, including Catshuis in The Hague, home to the prime minister of the Netherlands; the Dutch embassy in Berlin, the Amsterdam Public Library, and Lincoln Center in New York. In 2008, Jongstra was honored with the most prestigious Dutch design prize, the Prins Bernhard Cultuurfonds Prijs.
GR Wouw is being proposed for acquisition along with SI Alpaca, another naturally-dyed textile by Jongstra. Both pieces reflect Jongstra’s interest in combining sheerness and opacity.

Wallcovering Fabric, GR Wouw Wallpaper; Designed by Claudy Jongstra (Dutch, b. 1963); Netherlands; drenth heath wool, raw silk, raw linen, merino wool, silk chiffon, paper backing, weld dye (reseda luteola); H x W: 210.5 x 104.1 cm (6 ft. 10 7/8 in. x 41 in.); Gift of Claudy Jongstra; 2018-31-1