Tuesday, the Cincinnati Art Museum launched its first-ever gallery permanently dedicated to displaying and interpreting fashion and textiles.
The gallery is named in honor of Mary W. Baskett, who gifted the museum $5 million last year toward the founding of a permanent art gallery, as well as donating her compilation of art history research and her entire collection of Japanese fashion from iconic designers like Issey Miyake, Rei Kawakubo and Yohji Yamamoto, among others. Bassett passed away last month at the age of 85.
“Mary’s journey from curator to educator to gallerist, collector, and philanthropist in Cincinnati speaks to her deep dedication to and love for the arts and our city. Her passing is a difficult loss for our community,” said the museum’s Acting Curator of Fashion Arts and Textiles, Megan Nauer. “We are privileged to honor her legacy by carrying forward her dream of establishing a gallery committed to the display of fashion arts.”
The museum will regularly rotate the works on display inside the Mary W. Baskett Gallery, focusing on fashion and its intersections with other art forms. Its first special feature, titled Gesture and Meaning, draws entirely from Mrs. Baskett’s collection of avant-garde artists from Japan.
“CAM’s interest in the study of fashion and textile as fine art forms harkens to the community orientation of the museum as belonging to all of Cincinnati,” shared Cameron Kitchin, the museum’s director. “Elevating design and decorative arts into our work honors both Mary and the entirety of our broad mission to inspire and connect through the power of art.”
Baskett was the curator of prints at the museum from 1965 until 1971, and was a specialist in both Western and Japanese prints and a published author on the graphic arts. While at the museum, she was instrumental in building one of the world’s finest collections of 20th-century Japanese prints. Her commitment to Japanese fashion was recognized with the Minister of Foreign Affairs Tokyo Commendation Award in 2010 for her “contributions to cultural exchange in the field of art.” She also owned a gallery in Mount Adams and was an adjunct professor at the University of Cincinnati.
Thanks to her contributions, the museum has approximately 15,000 works in its fashion arts and textiles collection, including dress, accessories and fiber arts from around the world.
For more information, visit the Cincinnati Art Museum’s official website.