Noah Breuer – Reclamation

This exhibit investigates early twentieth-century domestic textile design in Europe and the Jewish-owned textile printing companies in Czech Bohemia and Moravia. The textiles used are from Carl Breuer and Sons (CB&S), the artist’s family’s former textile printing business, founded 1897 in Bohemia. In 1939 the company was seized and sold to Nazi-approved owners along with all other Jewish-owned property in German-occupied areas. Through research trips to the company’s archive of fabric samples and designs held at The Museum of Decorative Arts in Prague, Noah Breuer has amassed a rich collection of primary source material in the form of digital scans depicting designs, and printed fabric and letters of correspondence. He creates an array of printed works which not only tell his family’s story of persecution and emigration, but also raise questions about labor, authorship, and appropriation.