The Family (In Memory of a Summer in the White Mountains) (1917): Art, History and Details

The Family (In Memory of a Summer in the White Mountains) (1917) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Marguerite Zorach (American, 1887–1968).

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

Marguerite Zorach conceived her large, complex embroideries as major artistic statements at a time when the medium was routinely considered “craft,” as opposed to “fine art.” In doing so, she helped to erase such distinctions. One of her most acclaimed works, this example celebrates humanity in harmony with nature, presenting the artist, her husband (a Cleveland-raised sculptor named William Zorach), and their son amid an evergreen tree and four pairs of animals. Very time consuming to create, Zorach’s embroideries are rare.

Object facts

• Title: The Family (In Memory of a Summer in the White Mountains)
• Date: 1917
• Creator attribution: Marguerite Zorach (American, 1887–1968)
• Culture: America
• Type: Embroidery
• Technique: plain weave silk; wool embroidery
• Dimensions: object: 86.4 x 72.4 cm (34 x 28 1/2 in.); Framed: 91.4 x 77.8 cm (36 x 30 5/8 in.)
• Collection: Textiles
• Department: Textiles
• Accession number: 2020.261

A detail from the museum

In 1925, Zorach served as first president of the New York Society of Women Artists, an organization still in existence.

Collection credit

Edwin R. and Harriet Pelton Perkins Memorial Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• Year Book of the Architectural League of New York, and Catalogue of the Thirty-ninth Annual Exhibition. 1924.
• Lippman, Herbert. "The Architectural League Inhibition." The Arts 5, No.3 (March 1924).
• Friedman Hoffman, Marilyn. Marguerite and William Zorach: The Cubist Years, 1915-1918. Hanover, NH: University Press of New England, 1987.

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.