William Kentridge by Maria-Christina Villasenor

6), Asia, and Pre-Columbian America, the production of tapestries developed more or less independently in each of these areas. Tapestry is one of the oldest forms of woven textiles and probably the procedure most suited to creating pictures by weaving. Interpreting and adapting Kentridge’s compositions, Stephens and the members of her workshop have made it possible for a body of remarkable images to acquire a new status through an ancient practice. Her tapestry studio, established in 1963 in Swaziland, promotes the significance of tapestry through technical excellence, the use of the hand-carded and-spun mohair grown in South Africa, and a careful rendering of the drawings supplied by artists. The tapestry series is the result of a successful collaboration between the artist and Marguerite Stephens and her workshop.

The weavers then use a photograph of the collage as the basis for turning the image into tapestry. They originate in the artist’s collages of black silhouettes cut and glued over reproductions, mostly from nineteenth-century geographical atlases.

Since 2001, William Kentridge has completed a series of seventeen tapestries, each in multiple copies or versions.

William Kentridge by Maria-Christina Villasenor