Grenfell hooked mat 'Polar Bear on Ice Floe', c. 1930 (Baltimore Museum of Art 1996.165)

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Research notes

What it shows: a Grenfell mat hooked in wool and rayon or silk jersey on a jute burlap ground, 21 1/2 × 31 1/2 in. (54.6 × 80 cm). A woven label in red on white, sewn to the back at lower left, reads 'Grenfell Labrador Industries' (script) / 'HAND MADE IN NEWFOUNDLAND & LABRADOR' (block letters). The BMA names the maker as the Grenfell Mission Industrial Department (Canadian, 1909–1984). Gift of Dena S. Katzenberg, Baltimore, 1996. Shown in Textiles: Recycled/Reimagined (Jean and Allan Berman Textile Gallery, 10 March – 10 October 2010, no catalogue); not on view. The BMA's note: the mat was made by women working for the Grenfell Mission charity, which helped women in fishing villages along the Atlantic coast earn income by supplying pattern kits and used stockings donated by women in North American and British cities (slogan: "When your stockings run, let them run to Labrador!"); local Arctic scenes appealed to city buyers. Why it matters for the history: hooking as organised outwork, with a charity supplying patterns and recycled materials and selling the mats, decades before tufting turned Dalton's bedspread outwork into an industry. Also: Textile Museum of Canada T84.0117, a Grenfell mat hooked with silk stockings, 107 × 79 cm (date not seen). Sources: https://artbma.org/artwork/polar-bear-on-ice-floe · https://textilemuseum.ca/collection/hooked-rug-t84-0117/ Checked at source (Oct 2026): the BMA moved its collection site, and the old address (https://collection.artbma.org/objects/43106/polar-bear-on-ice-floe) no longer exists. artbma.org blocks automated reading, so the page text above was read on the BMA's own staging copy of the same page (https://artbmadevsite.org/artwork/polar-bear-on-ice-floe/). It gives c. 1930; an earlier page's 1929 is not repeated there.