Object Timeline

1935	Work on this object began.
1945	Work on this object ended.
2016	We acquired this object.
2017	We photographed this object.
2024	You found it!

Color Blanket

This is a Color blanket. It was manufactured by American Woolen Company. It is dated ca. 1940 and we acquired it in 2016. Its medium is wool, acetate and its technique is twill weave. It is a part of the Textiles department.

At the time this color blanket was woven, the American Woolen Company was at the height of its productivity, producing enormous quantities of wool twills for men’s and women’s fashions. As a tool used by textile mills in the development of a color palette, this blanket shows the incredibly broad range of colors under consideration for production. The blanket is woven in two pieces: the larger crosses fifty-four different warp configurations with fourteen wefts, resulting in 308 differently colored samples. The smaller crosses thirty-two warps with 3 wefts, giving 96 additional options. Normally, the selected colors would be cut from the blanket and returned to the mill for production. This blanket remains intact as an important demonstration of the process of color development.
Color blankets are of particular interest to Cooper Hewitt because teh reveal the process of developoing a color palette for production, demonstrate the complex interaction between color and weave structure, and provide a more visually dynamic was to exhibit solid-color fabrics.

This object was donated by American Textile History Museum. It is credited American Textile History Museum Collection, gift of Clif Lund-Rollins.

A digital print on non-woven paper sidewall inspired by the Hawaii Volcanoes National Park. The designer translated the landscape into a color diagram, which was then translated into a striped wallpaper pattern using specially mixed colors created for the landscape's palette. Here we see an irregular, vertical striped pattern using varying weights and shades of purple, terracotta, white and blue.

Sidewall, t.e.124, 2012
digital print on non-woven paper.
Gift of Thomas Eyck.
2012-33-1

Color Blanket, Weaving Palettes
54% cotton, 30% solution-dyed nylon, 15% post-consumer recycled polyester.
Gift of Momentum Group.
2013-36-4

A twill woven cotton and merino wool blanket with twenty-five horizontal bands of color which increase and descrease in saturation in small block increments from one side to the other. The colors include violet, olive green, pink, pale blue and lemon yellow. At the top of the blanket the words [RAW COLOR, MULTITONE, INDEX COLLECTION] are printed in violet capital letters

Blanket, Index Collection, 2012
organic cotton warp, merino wool weft.
Gift of Raw Color.
2013-22-1

Our curators have highlighted 1 object that are related to this one.

Poster depicts tapestry of printer control marks in various tones of magenta, purple, cyan, yellow, green, black and white. These marks are presented in circles, squares, rectangles, ovals, and lines. On the reverse side, the text advertises a series of exhibitions on editorial dsign helf in 2008 in the town of Chaumont, France.

Poster, Specimen
offset lithograph on paper.
Gift of Fanette Mellier.
2013-18-1

Its dimensions are

H x W: 184.2 × 149.9 cm (6 ft. 1/2 in. × 59 in.)

Cite this object as

Color Blanket; Manufactured by American Woolen Company; wool, acetate; H x W: 184.2 × 149.9 cm (6 ft. 1/2 in. × 59 in.); American Textile History Museum Collection, gift of Clif Lund-Rollins; 2016-35-84

Short URL http://cprhw.tt/o/2FYrna/
Accession Number 2016-35-84
Object ID 1108711711