Summer Cabin in Maine (Foot panel; one of a four-part bedcover)

Made of a linen plain weave ground embroidered with polychrome will in a range of stitches, this embroidery is part of one of the most ambitious works created by American artist, Marguerite Zorach (1887-1968). The foot panel of an embroidered bedcover commissioned from Zorach by Helen and Lathorp Brown around 1925 and completed by 1928, its location was unknown until the donor, Pamela C. Grossman, recently offered it to the MFA, which has owned the other parts of the bedcover for over two decades (1992.351 and 1992.352). Zorach's composition includes figures, flora, fauna and buildings reminiscent of her family's summers in Provincetown and Maine, like those found on the other sections of the embroidered bedcover. The donor is the granddaughter of Helen and Lathorp Brown, who met the Zorachs in Maine. The bedcover was separated at some point after 1930 (Marya Mannes, "The Embroideries of Marguerite Zorach," International Studio (March 1930): 29). While the MFA's centerpiece (1992.352) and joined side panels (1992.351) were probably added along the margins by the artist, this embroidered foot panel has its original dimensions.

With this generous gift, the MFA's collection will contain a complete bedcover designed and executed by one of America's most important artists of the 20th century. One of only four bedcovers made by Marguerite Zorach, this embroidered panel allows the MFA to tell a more complete story of Zorach's contributions to American art, addressing the degree to which her accomplishments were overshadowed by those of her husband, painter and sculptor William Zorach (1889-1966). Marguerite Zorach experimented with Fauvist colors and Cubist forms in both paint and thread, but her contributions to American Modernism were largely ignored by scholars until the 1990s, even though she participated in the 1913 International Exhibition of Modern Art (The Armory Show) and exhibited her work in New York galleries through the 1930s. Today, Marguerite Zorach's work is represented in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Cooper Hewitt, Brooklyn Museum, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Farnsworth Art Museum, National Museum of American Women Artists, Hood Museum of Art, Williams College Museum of Art, and Sheldon Museum of Art.