George Washington University Museum and Textile Museum

The Textile Museum was established in 1925 by George Hewitt Myers, a rug and textile collector and connoisseur — and was formerly housed in the building his family called home. At the time of its founding, the museum's collection included 275 rugs and sixty related textiles, a collection Myers had built since the 1890s. Myers, a pioneer in the appreciation of handmade textiles as art and collectable objects, was drawn to the fact that non-Western textiles were the products of anonymous artists, and therefore not judged by the name or reputation of a particular person. The first objects that Myers purchased were late-nineteenth century Turkish and Caucasian village rugs, vibrant pieces with geometric designs and strong colors. As time passed and his finances allowed, Myers began to acquire a broader range of textiles, from Ottoman carpets to archeological textiles from Peru. By the second decade of his collecting, Myers methodically set out to create a comprehensive assemblage of non-Western textiles for the purpose of increasing public knowledge and appreciation of textile traditions worldwide. His intentions came to fruition in 1925, when he transformed his family home into a public institution, and his private collection into a public one. The affiliation positioned The Textile Museum to educate the next generation and expand on its rich tradition of art, education, scholarship and cultural understanding. The new museum opened to the public on March 21, 2015. Exhibitions and programs are presented to the public in a custom-built, approximately 53,000-square-foot museum building located at G and 21st streets NW, bearing the names of both The George Washington University Museum and The Textile Museum. The new museum includes dedicated space for The Textile Museum, the Arthur D. Jenkins Library for the Textile Arts, and the museum shop. In addition to the downtown location, GW constructed a 20,000-square-foot conservation and collections resource center on its Virginia Science and Technology Campus in Loudoun County, Va., for the study and care of The Textile Museum's and the university's collections. In 2016, the original Textile Museum property in Kalorama was sold to Jeff Bezos for use as a private residence. ==Collection==

, 17th-18th century. In the collections of the Textile Museum. To be published in a new book, Stars of the Caucasus, at the International Symposium on Azerbaijani Carpets, Baku, 2017. In 1925 George Hewitt Myers founded The Textile Museum with a collection of 275 rugs and 60 related textiles drawn from the traditions of non-Western cultures. At the time of his death in 1957, his collection numbered 500 rugs and 3,500 textiles. Since then, the museum has broadened its holdings to better represent the full spectrum of non-Western textile arts. Today the museum's collections number more than 19,000 objects and span 5,000 years, dating from 3,000 B.C.E. to the present. Oriental rugs The intrinsic beauty of Oriental carpets had a profound influence on George Hewitt Myers' early collecting. As a result, the museum has one of the most important research collections of Oriental carpets, distinguished by both its range and depth. Its collection of 15th century Mamluk rugs from Egypt, Spanish carpets and classical Indian carpet fragments are matched by no other museum in the world. There is also a large collection of Anatolian and Central Asian rugs and a group of 17th century Caucasian dragon carpets and fragments that is perhaps the best collection in the world outside of Turkey. Other textiles Myers' initial acquisitions and later gifts and purchases now endow the museum with some of the finest collections in the world in early Islamic textiles, including tiraz, and Coptic textiles. In addition, the museum has significant holdings of Indian, Southeast Asian, Central Asian, Persian, Turkish and Greek textiles. Although smaller in number, the collection also includes textiles from China, Japan and Africa. The museum also has holdings of pre-Columbian Peruvian textiles. Styles that are particularly well represented include Ocucaje, Nasca, Huari, Chimu, Chancay and Inca. In addition the collection includes extensive holdings of textiles in the modern traditions that descend from pre-Columbian origins, including those of Guatemala and Mexico, as well as the Andean countries of Ecuador, Peru and Bolivia. The museum also has a large collection of molas from Kuna Yala in Panama. ==Exhibitions and events==

, mid 1600s AD, Ottoman Turkish and Safavid silk fabrics. 2015 exhibit at the old Textile Museum. Exhibitions are designed both to present textiles as art and to place them in a cultural context, by exploring religious, social, artistic, economic and ecological aspects of the cultures in which they were created. A wide range of public programs for audiences of all ages and levels of experience, including gallery tours, lectures, family programs, The Textile Museum Fall Symposium, and others, complement the exhibitions. In 2010, The Textile Museum collaborated with The Pink Line Project to produce Hapi Hapi Hour, a closing party for its exhibition of avant-garde clothing, "Contemporary Japanese Fashion: The Mary Baskett Collection." To create an event that was as edgy as the exhibition, the museum lit up its secluded garden with lanterns; brought in a band, a DJ and a sushi and sake bar; and hosted tours of the exhibit. In 2011, The Textile Museum collaborated with The Pink Line Project to create PM at the TM in June to ring in the summer exhibition, Green: The Color and The Cause. Additionally, The Textile Museum and The Pink Line Project worked together to throw the second iteration of Cuisine Contra. ==References==