Vegetable Garden, circa 1933
Framed (ref: 11032)
Needlework and wool embroidery
Provenance: The Artists Family; private collection
Literature: Hornet & Wild Rose, The Art of Tirzah Garwood, by Anne Ullmann, The Fleece Press, 2020
This is one of only two surviving pieces of embroidery that Garwood produced; It shows a walled garden with beds of cabbages and marrows, and a young woman watering a row of runner beans; the hose circling the lawn snakes around her feet and sends out a fine spray of satin silk water. The embroidery is reminiscent of the work once made by sailors on long sea voyages, and as such has a very English feel; as so often in her work, Tirzah demonstrates an innovative approach to a traditional craft. Her use of modern imagery and unusual everyday subject matter, a fashionable artistic trend in the 1930's, now giving this needlework picture a very evocative flavour of the era.
We are indebted to Anne Ullman for her assistance.
