Kathryn comes from a long line of artisans dating back to the 1800s. The Iklé family produced over 1,450 beautiful textiles all over Europe for generations. Collections can be found at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the International Folk Art Museum, the Cooper Hewitt-Smithsonian Design Museum, the Cleveland Museum of Art, the Textile Museum of St. Gallen, Switzerland, and the Museum für Völkerkunde, Basel, and the Musée du Trocadéro, Paris.
Historic lace was a passion of Leopold Iklé (1838-1922), head of the famous textile company, Iklé Frères, and scion of a Hamburg textile dynasty who successfully produced machine-made embroidery over the course of the industrial boom in St. Gallen, Switzerland around 1900. He exported to England, France, Denmark, Sweden, Russia, and the United States, among other places, at a time when St. Gallen was the market leader in the lace industry. Iklé's collection of handmade European bobbin lace and needlepoint from the sixteenth to the nineteenth century originally served as inspiration for his firm's textile designers. Through his passion for collecting, however, it quickly surpassed the practical demands of a simple pattern collection, and in 1904 he donated the collection to the Textilmuseum St. Gallen, Switzerland.
The Textilmuseum was established in 1878 for the express purpose of providing historic models for designers in the textile industry in Eastern Switzerland, and Iklé's donations to the institution between 1901 and 1904 helped build the collection of approximately 6,500 objects spanning the medieval period to the twentieth century. The collection has been a reference for scholars and textile researchers for over a century. The museum's lace holdings are rivaled only by those collections at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, and the Museum für angewandte Kunst in Vienna.
Kathryn's artistic journey is deeply intertwined with her family's rich legacy. One of the defining features of Kathryn's art is her use of light and airiness inherent in lace textiles. Her art often seems to breathe with a sense of lightness, evoking the ethereal qualities of lace. Pattern and design are at the heart of lace textiles, and Kathryn pays homage to this aspect by incorporating intricate patterns into her own creations. She may draw inspiration from traditional lace motifs or reinvent them in a contemporary context.
Kathryn's art serves as a bridge between the past and the present. She connects with her ancestors and honors the family business by infusing her work with the passion and artistry that have been handed down through the generations. In doing so, she ensures that the legacy of the Iklé family's lace craftsmanship lives on in a contemporary and relevant way.
In December 2022, Kathryn visited the Bard Graduate Center Museum in Manhattan, New York for a private viewing of the Iklé lace exhibit 'Threads of Power,' on loan from the Textilmuseum St. Gallen. View photos of the trip below!
Historic lace was a passion of Leopold Iklé (1838-1922), head of the famous textile company, Iklé Frères, and scion of a Hamburg textile dynasty who successfully produced machine-made embroidery over the course of the industrial boom in St. Gallen, Switzerland around 1900. He exported to England, France, Denmark, Sweden, Russia, and the United States, among other places, at a time when St. Gallen was the market leader in the lace industry. Iklé's collection of handmade European bobbin lace and needlepoint from the sixteenth to the nineteenth century originally served as inspiration for his firm's textile designers. Through his passion for collecting, however, it quickly surpassed the practical demands of a simple pattern collection, and in 1904 he donated the collection to the Textilmuseum St. Gallen, Switzerland.
The Textilmuseum was established in 1878 for the express purpose of providing historic models for designers in the textile industry in Eastern Switzerland, and Iklé's donations to the institution between 1901 and 1904 helped build the collection of approximately 6,500 objects spanning the medieval period to the twentieth century. The collection has been a reference for scholars and textile researchers for over a century. The museum's lace holdings are rivaled only by those collections at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, and the Museum für angewandte Kunst in Vienna.
Kathryn's artistic journey is deeply intertwined with her family's rich legacy. One of the defining features of Kathryn's art is her use of light and airiness inherent in lace textiles. Her art often seems to breathe with a sense of lightness, evoking the ethereal qualities of lace. Pattern and design are at the heart of lace textiles, and Kathryn pays homage to this aspect by incorporating intricate patterns into her own creations. She may draw inspiration from traditional lace motifs or reinvent them in a contemporary context.
Kathryn's art serves as a bridge between the past and the present. She connects with her ancestors and honors the family business by infusing her work with the passion and artistry that have been handed down through the generations. In doing so, she ensures that the legacy of the Iklé family's lace craftsmanship lives on in a contemporary and relevant way.
In December 2022, Kathryn visited the Bard Graduate Center Museum in Manhattan, New York for a private viewing of the Iklé lace exhibit 'Threads of Power,' on loan from the Textilmuseum St. Gallen. View photos of the trip below!