Betty Abrego Ring (March 18, 1923 – May 5, 2014) was an American decorative arts specialist.[1] She was a researcher and collector of early and Colonial American needlework, and is considered one of the most prominent figures in early American schoolgirl embroidery.[2][3]
Betty Abrego Ring | |
|---|---|
| Born | Betty Ruth Abrego March 18, 1923 Beaumont, Texas |
| Died | May 5, 2014 (aged 91) Houston, Texas |
Life and career
editBetty Ruth Abrego was born in Beaumont, Texas on March 18, 1923, to parents Nellie (née Fitzsimmons) and Claude Abrego. As a young girl, her family moved frequently due to her father's work as a dredging engineer. She attended the University of Texas, leaving and marrying Gregg Ring after two years. They had seven children between 1948 and 1963. During this period and outside her time parenting, she began collecting and studying antiques.[2][4] Ring purchased her first needlework sampler in 1960, which began her collection of American 18th and 19th century embroideries.[5][2]
Around 1963, Ring joined the Heritage Society in Texas, becoming a volunteer for the Kellum-Noble House. She became a board member in 1965 and served as president of the Heritage Society from 1965 to 1967. In 1967, she became a docent for Bayou Bend. There, Ring became a protégé of Ima Hogg and organized "An Exhibition of Eighteenth and Early Nineteenth Century American Needlework", and began giving lectures alongside the exhibit.[2]
Needlework research
editIn the 1960s, Ring started studying "mourning embroideries", a style of needlework craft that began in the early 1800s in the United States. These types of silk embroideries featured figures near urn-topped pedestals, often set in gardens or cemeteries with weeping willows and angels.[6][7] She researched their origins, finding that students created them usually because they were fashionable, rather than for grief.[6] Ring later wrote, "It was mourning embroideries that really aroused my curiosity and led to an intense interest in schoolgirl needlework."[2]
During Ring's studies, there was a lack of research and writing on mourning embroideries. In 1965, Ring traveled to Chapel Hill in North Carolina to visit Elizabeth Daniel, a dealer and collector of silk memorials. When she saw Daniel's collection of embroideries together in one place, she realized that the needlework shared similar stylistic features. This led her to believe that early American embroidery pieces were not made independently of one another, but were instead made with similar styles through the instruction of individual teachers.[2]
Ring traveled across the U.S. collecting needlework samplers, analyzing them, and researching genealogical records to trace 18th and 19th century schoolgirl embroidery.[1][8] For decades before this, American 18th and 19th century needlework samplers were thought to be amateur works made from original patterns.[8] Ring's research showed that, rather than original creations, most samplers and silk embroidery followed patterns laid out by school mistresses for their students.[8] Ring's research also revealed that needlework of that time had distinct styles or motifs that could be traced back to specific schools or teachers.[6]
Starting in 1967, Ring began giving lectures on needlework samplers. She wrote for Antiques magazine, writing her first article about needlework in 1971,[9] titled "Memorial Embroideries by American Schoolgirls."[2]
In the 1980s, Ring conducted research on schoolgirl needlework, including that of Rhode Island school mistress Mary Balch and her students' needlework, for an exhibit called Let Virtue Be a Guide to Thee - Needlework in the education of Rhode Island Women, 1730-1830. In addition to being a guest curator of the Rhode Island exhibit, she created the catalogue book, Let Virtue Be a Guide to Thee (1983).[1][9] The exhibit went on to be held at the Houston Museum of Fine Arts and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.[9]
In 2012, Sotheby's held an auction of pieces from her collection that grossed more than $4,000,000.[3] Ring died on May 5, 2014, in Houston, Texas, at the age of 91.[4]
Bibliography
editReferences
edit- ^ a b c d Silbert, Kate (June 2019). "Needle, Pen, and the Social Geography of Taste in Early National Providence". The New England Quarterly. 92 (2). The MIT Press: 179–220. doi:10.1162/tneq_a_00733. ISSN 0028-4866.
- ^ a b c d e f g "Betty Ring: Scholar and Collector Honored for Her Contributions to the Antiques Field". Antiques And the Arts Weekly. 29 March 2005. Retrieved 1 September 2020.
- ^ a b "Important American Schoolgirl Embroideries: The Landmark Collection of Betty Ring". Sotheby's. 22 January 2012. Retrieved 17 May 2020.
- ^ a b "Obituary". American Ancestors. 15 (4). EBSCOhost: 63. Fall 2014. Retrieved 7 May 2023.
- ^ Reif, Rita (6 May 1990). "Studious Stitches of Another Time Live On as Art". The New York Times. p. 38. Retrieved 18 May 2020.
- ^ a b c d Louie, Elaine (26 April 1990). "Samplers Offer Look At History". The New York Times. p. C13. Retrieved 18 May 2020.
- ^ Jong, Sheryl De (14 February 2018). "Mourning pictures: How women used embroidery to memorialize George Washington, family, and friends". National Museum of American History. Retrieved 31 August 2020.
- ^ a b c Solis-Cohen, Lita; Solis-Cohen, Sally (19 September 1993). "Girlhood embroidery: Remembering a stitch in time". The Baltimore Sun. Retrieved 19 May 2020.
- ^ a b c Hoffman, Marilyn (14 April 1985). "Houston Woman Treasures Her Schoolgirl Samplers". Hartford Courant. p. J15. Retrieved 31 August 2020 – via Newspapers.com.
- ^ Garchik, Leah (2 May 1976). "A Craft Bonanza". The San Francisco Examiner. p. 36. Retrieved 31 August 2020.
- ^ Albertson, Karla Klein (4 April 1997). "Stitches in time: Masterworks of Needlecraft to take spotlight". The Philadelphia Inquirer. p. E7. Retrieved 18 May 2020 – via Newspapers.com.