In T: High Fiber

It sometimes feels as if no aspect of American midcentury modern design has been left unconsidered, unexhibited, unreissued. But there is undiscovered territory. You’re sitting on it.

“Knoll Textiles, 1945-2010,” at the Bard Graduate Center in Manhattan from May 18 to July 31, flips the story line on the brand’s famous chairs (Womb, Tulip, Diamond, Platner) by focusing on the fabrics rather than the frames.

Those are the opening lines of “High Fiber,” my preview in this weekend’s T Magazine of the upcoming exhibition. I have long loved the brilliant colors used in Knoll interiors, and this show brings many new names and new fabrics to light. Many of the textiles on display were found in attics, some of those the attics at very famous museums. When acquisitions of famous furniture came in, the bolts and scraps of upholstery were stored, awaiting rediscovery as design objects in and of themselves.