Celebrating the Fiber Arts: The Helen Geier Flynt Textile Gallery

Flynt Center of Early New England Life - Helen Geier Flynt Textile Gallery The Helen Geier Flynt Textile Gallery showcases Historic Deerfield's important collection of fashion, needlework, and domestic textiles. The core of the collection was assembled through the efforts of one of the museum's founders, Helen Geier Flynt (1895-1986). Considered one of the finest collections in America, the collection contains items dating from the late 17th century through the mid-20th century. Rotations and thematic displays every season are set against the backdrop of four main fibers that created most textiles before the 20th century; silk, wool, cotton, and linen. Together with the museum's historic houses, the gallery displays a portion of the roughly 8,000 items in the fashion, needlework, and domestic textile collection. The gallery helps visitors consider the aesthetic and practical choices made and used by people in Deerfield, the Connecticut River Valley, New England, England, and Europe. This exhibition is made possible in part by a grant from The Coby Foundation, Ltd. TEXT iles and Technology Featured in the Helen Geier Flynt Textile Gallery in 2021 is an insightful display featuring a group of objects that used both the printed word and/or new innovations to decorate and improve life for people in the 19th and 20th centuries. The theme is explored through a selection of objects that include an engaging pair of printed cotton handkerchiefs, a rare pair of early 20th-century water wings, and a 19th-century hoop skirt patent - as well as an actual hoop skirt made to its specifications! TEXT iles and Technology is but one of the themes explored in the gallery, named for founder Helen Geier Flynt (1895-1986), whose interest and collecting focus helped found the core of the museum's important fashion and textile collection, which today numbers some 8,000 pieces. Buy Tickets Posted in Exhibitions