Silk and Silver Threads: Brilliance and Sheen in Andean Textile Traditions

Name: Silk and Silver Threads: Brilliance and Sheen in Andean Textile Traditions
Start: 2026-06-20T10:00:00-07:00
End: 2026-06-20T11:30:00-07:00
Location: de Young Museum

Schedule

Sat Jun 20 2026 at 10:00 am to 11:30 am

UTC-07:00

Location

de Young Museum | San Francisco, CA

Saturday Lecture with Elena Phipps
About this Event
Event Photos

The presentation will take place at the Koret Auditorium and over ZOOM.
Eventbrite tickets are for NON TAC members who would like to view the live Zoom broadcast. A recording will be available for 14 days following the talk.
Textile Arts Council Members: A linkwill be sent from Zoom the week of the event.
Woven brilliance manifests in the textile traditions of the Andes in many ways. Precolumbian artisans understood very well how to incorporate special materials to make shiny and glimmering garments, composed of gold and silver plaques or colorful, iridescent feathers stitched onto the surface of cloth. But it was not until the Spanish introduction of metal yarns, composed of strips of silver or gilt-silver sheet wrapped around a core yarn that highly skilled Andean weavers developed ways to incorporate these special elements into a woven cloth. In this presentation, we will look at the ways in which silk and silver along with the idea of woven brilliance, manifest in the textiles from the 16th century onwards. And how the concept of luster in cloth– lipi in the Quechua language—was constructed in part through the use of precious metal and silk, but also with traditional materials that connect to different aspects of Andean cultural value and belief systems.

Event Photos

Elena Phipps, PhD, Columbia University in Precolumbian Art History and Archaeology, 1989, worked at the Metropolitan Museum of Art for 34 years as a textile conservator as well as co- curator for two major textile exhibitions: The Colonial Andes: Tapestries and Silverwork 1430-1830, in 2004 (whose catalogue was awarded the CAA Alfred Barr Jr. Award and the Mitchell Prize) and The Interwoven Globe: worldwide textile trade (2013). Elena has focused her professional work on the history of textile materials, materiality and techniques, in cultural contexts. She has published widely, including Cochineal Red: the art history of a color (MMA, 2010), Looking at Textiles: a technical terminology (Getty Publications, 2013), The Peruvian Four-Selvaged Cloth (Fowler Museum, 2013), Woven Brilliance: Approaching Color in Andean Textile Traditions. (Textile Museum Journal, 2020), “The Color Purple in the Andes”, (DHA, 2024) among many others, including co-editor and author of Arte y Saber del Textil, (Banco de Credito del Peru, 2024). She was President of the Textile Society of America (2011-2014) and since 2011, teaches textile history, techniques and cultures in the Fowler Museum, as part of the Department of World Arts and Culture/Dance, University of California at Los Angeles, (UCLA).