A contemporary Czech landscape tapestry ‘Wolfsberg’, by the Moravská gobelínová manufaktura (MGM), made for Schloss Wilhelmsburg and designed by Dagmar Varady, 1996

Paolo Bianchi, Dagmar Varady, Vom Virus Novalis befallen, Monograph, in: Kunstforum International, vol. 175 April-May 2005, title photo and pp.192-209. www.kunstforuminternational.de, 2005;

Dagmar Varady, Wolkenwasserwege, Monograph, Verlag für moderne Kunst Nuremberg, 2003, pp.100-103;

Dagmar Varady, Grasberg, in: Ist die Photographie am Ende? Aktuelle Photo- und Medienkunst, DGph, Staatliche Galerie Moritzburg Halle, mdv Mitteldeutscher Verlag, 2000, pp.74, 75;

Dagmar Varady, Orte. Ein Raum-Zeit-Projekt, 1 Teppich, 24 Kassetten, 365 Tage - 1 Klang, 24 Minuten, 365 Takte, in: Heide Nixdorff (ed.), Das Textile Medium als Phänomen der Grenze -Begrenzung - Entgrenzung, Reimer Verlag Berlin, 1999, vol. 30, p. 45ff, (ill.) p. 50;

Dagmar Varady, art & concept, Monografie im Eigenverlag, Halle und Berlin, 1999, p.5;

Gobelins für den Weißen Saal im Schloß Wilhelmsburg Schmalkalden, E. Reinhold Verlag, 1996;

Dagmar Varady, Gobelins Weißer Saal Schloß Wilhelmsburg Schmalkalden, F.E.G.L., insert

The unique ‘Grasberg’ and ‘Wolfsberg’ tapestries were specially commissioned in 1996 for the White Hall in Wilhelmsburg Palace in Schmalkalden (images showing the tapestries in situ). The two tapestries each depicting a landscape in 96 different colours have a combined size of about 52 square meter; unparalleled in size for a contemporary tapestry.

The Moravian tapestry factory was founded by the architect and designer Josef Hoffmann (1870-1956) from the Wiener Werkstätte. With about 100 years of history this mill is one of the very few remaining in the world that still weaves in this very fine traditional ‘gobelin’ technique, a technique which cannot be imitated by any other method. The production of these two tapestries in Moravia lasted 20 months and required 16 weavers.

The artist, Dagmar Varady (b.1961), is resident in Germany and was the recipient of the HAP Grieshaber Prize in 2002. The collections in which her work is represented include major institutions like the Antonio Ratti Textile Center of New York's Metropolitan Museum, the British Museum in London and the Neue Sammlung in Munich. She was commissioned by the federal state of Thuringia to create the tapestries at Schmalkalden after her early exhibition in at the Akademie Schloss Solitude, Stuttgart in 1994, and she has since exhibited not only across Germany but also in the USA, Italy, Hungary, Switzerland and Austria. For an exhaustive list of the collections that hold her work and her past exhibitions, see https://dagmarvarady.de/cv/.