The Textile Museum | Mission & History

Mission & History

Mission Statement

The Textile Museum expands public knowledge and appreciation—locally, nationally, and internationally—of the artistic merits and cultural importance of the world’s textiles.

George Hewitt Myers
1875-1957

History

In 1925 George Hewitt Myers founded The Textile Museum with a collection of 275 rugs and 60 related textiles. Myers collected actively for the Museum until his death in 1957, at which time the collection had grown to encompass the textile arts of Africa, Asia and Latin America. In Myers' time, the Museum was open by appointment only and received several hundred visitors annually. Today, The Textile Museum is one of the world's foremost specialized art museums and receives 25,000 to 35,000 visitors each year from around the world.

To learn more about the founder of The Textile Museum and the history of the institution, visit our online exhibition Ahead of His Time: The Collecting Vision of George Hewitt Myers.

The Textile Museum and The George Washington University

The Textile Museum is joining with The George Washington University, a leading university in Washington, D.C., to become the cornerstone of a new museum scheduled to open in mid-2014 on GW’s main campus in Foggy Bottom. The affiliation positions The Textile Museum to educate the next generation and expand on its rich tradition of art, education, scholarship and cultural understanding.

Exhibitions and programs will be presented to the public in a custom-built, approximately 35,000 square foot museum building located at G and 21st Streets, bearing the names of both The Textile Museum and the George Washington University Museum. The new museum will include dedicated galleries for The Textile Museum, the Arthur D. Jenkins Library for the Textile Arts and The Textile Museum Shop. In addition to the downtown location, GW will construct a 20,000 square foot conservation and resource center on its Virginia Science and Technology Campus in Loudoun County, Va., for the study and care of The Textile Museum and the university's collections.

Until the new museum opens, The Textile Museum will continue operating at its current S street location.

To read more about this affiliation, please visit www.gwu.edu/textilemuseum.

Buildings

The Textile Museum is currently housed in two historic buildings in the Kalorama neighborhood of Washington, D.C. Visitors enter the Museum through the former home of the Museum's founding family which was designed by John Russell Pope in 1913.

Since 1925, the Museum's galleries have been located in an adjacent building purchased by George Hewitt Myers for this purpose. Large gardens behind the buildings are open to the public during Museum hours.

For more information on visiting the Museum, click here.


An exterior view of The Textile Museum	The Textile Museum garden

The Textile Museum Annual Reports

	TM Annual Report 2010
	TM Annual Report 2009

Earlier reports are available by request from the Development Department.