It is rare that I wrote a blog post about one exhibition. The one I saw at Blickling on my journey to a June short break in West Runton, was just that exhibition.
As usual I aimed to get there to have a coffee before the second hand bookshop and hall open at 11.00.
Despite a few challenges I more or less managed it. All I knew in advance was that there was an exhibition of textiles that was being well advertised.
When I came to the end of the exhibition my first thought was: ‘I must see this again before it ends and how lucky I am in the middle of rural Norfolk to see an exhibition of such quality.’ As you will know if your read my blog I love Blickling Hall and there is always something different to concentrate on in the magnificent Hall itself, the contents or the grounds.
So what was this exhibition? It is called Journeys: Global Textiles from the Karun Thakar Collection
Karun was born in Kenya, brought up in India and lives in England. He has sewn since being a very young child. There is a short film, towards the start of the exhibition, of a 6 minute interview about the exhibition. It was worth watching, especially I felt for the context of the exhibition. What worked so well was that the items he chose to ‘go with’ each of the rooms and areas of Blickling did just that! The room enhanced the objects and the objects enhanced the rooms. I was given a small 36 page lavishly illustrated brief guide to the exhibition and there are further details in each space where they are exhibited. It was also possible to get up close to them. Some were on walls, some draped over furniture and some on mannequins or hanging on large spaces. There were also boxes containing complimentary fabrics that one could touch!
What this exhibition managed to do was tell further stories of the history of Blickling and its owners and family over the years.
I will select a few of the pieces
In the Entrance Hall, a place filled with portraits of men, he chose to celebrate the many women behind many of the textiles, with a glorious piece, a kantha, dated 1800 to 1850. Like many of the pieces, they could be contemporary! Made of spun and woven cotton this was then embroidered with silk. The detail is based in rural life and everything is included from politics to domestic violence and death. This was worthy of a much longer study and by the time I had left the Hall I knew I was returning to the shop afterwards to get the book(1)
He also wanted to show the process and this 1600’s example shows an inked canvas as well as the silk threads being used to complete this piece.
If you enlarge this I hope you can see the different stitches contributing to the final work which to me give depth to the work
Along side it was this beautiful yellow silk piece . (I need to go back and find out more about this vibrant piece!)
In the south drawing room a variety of large pieces, called chintzes and toiles, were draped over sofas. My eye was drawn to the ‘Norwich like’ shawls. ( My one disappointment with the little film was that although he referred to them as paisley there was no mention of Norwich shawls and I would like to know more about provenance of those on display)
There was a detour to look over the balcony- the colours were striking.
The upper ante room housed a display of superb kimonos, This one is called a Meisen kimono. and is dated 1900 to 1950
On display in the Long Gallery, draped on mannequins as saris was a collection of kente cloth. The cloth was made up of strips stitched together and the sample to touch with this exhibition was great as I could get a sense of the warp and weft. The work that must have gone into each piece was staggering. The colours were really striking.
Peter the Great Room. The one on the right is from Uzbekistan, 1800-1899
and in the State Bedroom a piece reminding us that lives and stitches are both connected too themselves and to each other. A thought provoking exhibition in many ways.
And so all that was left to get the book and find out more about Karun Thakar and his collection.
I hope I have motivated you to visit this exhibition, this is the briefest of snapshots!
I might start calling my ‘stash’ a collection as most of my pieces have a story behind them and collection is so much nicer that ‘stash’ which is term I personally find derogatory. (From the book Karun is noted as having tens of thousands of global textiles in his collection…… and I thought I had a storage problem……)
Notes
Stephen Ellcock’s Book of Textiles The Karun Thakar Collection
Stephen Ellcock, is given as the author, he has a very interesting fb page (which has a large following) if you re interested in knowing more about him
To see more of the Karun Thakar collection instagram is a good place to start: Karuncollection
There are other Karun Thakar exhibitions in 2 other National Trust properties over the same time frame 22May - 1Nov 2026 at Osterley House and Park and Dyrham
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