Drawing in Thread: Olga de Amaral and Anne Wilson

Acclaimed artists Olga de Amaral (b. 1932; Weaving, 1954–55) and Anne Wilson (b. 1946; BFA Fiber, 1972) both studied in the renowned Fiber program at Cranbrook Academy of Art nearly 20 years apart. Featuring selections from Cranbrook Art Museum’s collection, Drawing in Thread references their shared interest in exploring architectural space and celebrating the most elemental component of fiber: the thread. 

The exhibition debuts the generous gift of five Brumas (Mists) (2013+) from Amaral to Cranbrook Art Museum, following the museum’s organization of her career retrospective, Olga de Amaral: To Weave a Rock (2021). Shown in ethereal groupings and iterative arrangements, Amaral’s Brumas are twenty-first-century reconstitutions of experiments in material, scale, and space that began in the early 1950s when she was an architecture student at the Colegio Mayor de Cundinamarca in Bogotá, Colombia. 

Several works from Anne Wilson’s Portable City series (2008–2009) will also be on view. Generously gifted to the museum by Wilson, Rhona Hoffman Gallery, and Paul Kotula Gallery, these intricate pieces use fiber to “draw” abstract architectural miniatures. The series reflects Wilson’s research on German architect Frei Otto (1925–2015), celebrated for his pioneering lightweight tensile structures. 

Together, Amaral’s and Wilson’s works create for the viewer an immersive experience into the creative minds of each artist’s own architectural fascination.