The collection
Textile with block pattern in various shades of blue, green, grey, and yellow.
1954–55

Textile, Remoulade

Designed by
Jack Lenor Larsen (born 1927)
Material
Wool, cotton, rayon, linen, Mylar, polyethylene, silk, jute, and metallic yarns, warp-faced plain weave
Produced by
Jack Lenor Larsen, Inc., New York, New York
Dimensions
138.5 x 128.1 cm

The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, the Liliane and David M. Stewart Collection, gift of Kelvyn Grant Lilley, D81.136.1

Larsen’s achievement in Remoulade, based on his experience working with handlooms at Cranbrook Academy, was creating the look of handcraftsmanship with high-volume power-driven machine looms. The pattern is complex, incorporating approximately thirty natural and manmade yarns of different weights and textures. Larsen called it Remoulade after the French sauce of various spicy ingredients.

Larsen wrote that Remoulade was first woven “as a wall hanging by using up hundreds of leftover bobbins of all manner of yarns. . . . When I hung it in the foyer of our first showroom, our clients insisted we weave it for them, for upholstery!” The textile was produced in several colorways.

The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, photo: Giles Rivest.