SFBARS: Uzbek and Kyrgyz Weavings of Central Asia: Tent and Animal Trappings Dennis Marquand

Uzbek and Kyrgyz Weavings of Central Asia:
Tent and Animal Trappings
Dennis Marquand

Friday, February 12, 2010

Reception begins 6:30 pm. Program starts at 7:15PM

Krimsa Gallery
2190 Union street, San Francisco
415-441-4321
(Nearest parking: garage at 2000 Union ; public parking three blocks away on Pierce between Lombard and Chestnut)

Bring your Uzbek, Kyrgyz and other non-Turkmen Central Asian weavings for Show and Tell.

Dennis Marquand, a native southern Californian, is best known as the leading dealer in carpet and textile books. But he is also one of the major collectors of small Central Asian, non-Turkmen trappings and other weavings, particularly from the Uzbek and Kyrgyz tribes, as well as from Karakalpak and other little known weaving groups (Arabs, Aymaqs, etc).

Dennis developed an interest in Oriental rugs while in college and for the last 40 years has been buying, selling, studying and collecting tribal rugs and trappings. He has a ba from Cal Sate Northridge and an ma from usc. He is a charter member of the Textile Museum Associates of Southern California and has participated in national and international oriental carpet events as a dealer and speaker. Since 1985 he has dealt in books on oriental rugs,

ethnographic textiles and the people who made them. He currently works with his son Wesley and together they operate Rugbooks.com the premier source of literature on the subject and act as the distributor for the publications of the International Conference on Oriental Carpets.

As interest in the non-Turkmen weavings from Central Asia has grown over the past decade, a number of dedicated collectors are beginning to help the carpet and textile community better understand the rich ethnic heritage of this region and to try to analyze, categorize and appreciate the differences between these groups. Dennis Marquand's Show and Tell of weavings from his collection will further this project. We are still at the very beginning of a proper understanding of the weavings of these many ethnic and tribal groups similar to where the carpet community was in the late 1960's with Turkmen weavings.

Dennis has offered the following comment:

Because of the processes of migration, conquest, intermarriage, and assimilation, many of the peoples that now inhabit Central and Southwest Asia are of mixed origins, often stemming from fragments of many different tribes, though they speak closely related Turkic languages. The formerly nomadic peoples of Central Asia were pastoralists and lived in portable round yurts which they could set up and take down quickly to migrate with their flocks. Primarily known for their felted, embroidered and otherwise flat-woven textiles and animal trappings, the non-Turkmen people of Central Asia also wove piled pieces, which decorated their tents and animals.