Concerto Grosso
detail

Concerto Grosso
detail

Concerto Grosso
detail

Tom Phillips was initially approached by Guy Fino of Manufactura Tapeçarias Portalegre in 1981 to make a tapestry of his pastel drawing Family Music (collection Channel 4 Television). Manufactura Tapeçarias Portalegre is now run by Fino’s daughter, Vera sá da Costa and in the intervening years four more tapestries have been made. The most recent of these, Concerto Grosso, was one of their most challenging pieces. Lurdes Serra made the enlargement and matched the colours, her name is woven onto the lower edging close to the identification number on the reverse side. It took her 80 working days to prepare the drawing for weaving. Two others worked at the warehouse separating the wool colours and this took a month. Four women did the weaving and preparation of the “mescals”, these are the mix of different colours in the same weaving thread (8 wool threads to one weaving thread). The weaving took 626 working days.

The finished work was shown alongside the other tapestries and related paintings, drawings and collage works at the Galeria Tapeçarias Portalegre in Lisbon between December 2002 and February 2003.