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01.19.14

John Foster | Accidental Mysteries

The Renewed Art of Embroidered Photographs

As a snapshot collector, I often come across photographic images that have been altered in some way. Commonly found are painted photographs — those black and white images that have been “colorized” before technology gave us color. Photos that have been drawn and written on is another collecting niche I enjoy.

I happen to own several actual photographic postcards from the turn of the last century that have been embroidered. These paper cards are embellished with decorative embroidered stitching that were created for tourists, and most of these seem to have come from Spain, Portugal, Germany and other European countries. More recently, an Italian born artist by the name of Maurizio Anzeri has found great success with his embroidered photographs, obviously inspiring a few other artists to take the needle and thread to photographic images. Anzeri's work is gorgeous, bringing with it elements of extraordinary design and such masterful perfection it makes me feel as if it were created by computer — not that I find that detracting. If it is done by hand, one stitch at a time, that’s great. If he uses a computer program to create his stitching — that's fine too. It's ingenious work.

While I enjoy the work of Anzeri, who is the first person I know of to reinvent and bring new art to a centuries old craft, it is Dutch artist Hinke Schreuders whose embroidery on photographs excites me now. Her work feels more “statement orientated” in the images I present here. Additionally, her work with thread is very intuitive and raw, different than the work of Mr. Anzeri.

Judge for yourself. Few creative things today are truly new — it's the work that builds on, pushes forward and continues to invent that gets noticed.

embroidered photographs