Untitled (Paul Tannenbaum), from A Postcolonial Kinderhood

Elaine Reichek

1993

Reichek used needlework to comment on and subvert the embroidered sampler, an eighteenth- and nineteenth-century woman’s craft, transforming it into a feminist exploration of the exposure and repression of identity. In A Postcolonial Kinderhood, Reichek reimagined her childhood room. Her German-Jewish parents had filled their home with furnishings that expressed their devotion to living an assimilated American life. But in Reichek’s installation what look like ordinary American samplers are embroidered with messages that reveal their Jewish identity.

Needlework in a frame with a border of designs, the alphabet and numbers in the center, and text at the bottom.

Credits

Elaine Reichek, Untitled (Paul Tannenbaum), 1993, from A Postcolonial Kinderhood. Hand embroidery on linen, 16.75 x 17.625 in. (42.5 x 44.9 cm). Photograph by Paul Kennedy. Collection of The Jewish Museum, New York, NY. Purchase: Melva Bucksbaum, Mr. and Mrs. Nathan Shaffran, and Joan Kaplan Gifts; Fine Arts Acquisitions Committee Fund; and Agnes Gund and Daniel Shapiro, Cheryl and Henry Welt, Paula Krulak, Toby Devan Lewis, and Henry Buhl Gifts, 1997-195l.l. Courtesy of the artist.

Published in: The Posen Library of Jewish Culture and Civilization, vol. 10.