Nominations for the R.L. Shep Memorial Book Award are now open!
Given annually to a publication judged to be the best book in the field of global cultural heritage textile studies, the award consists of a cash prize funded by an endowment established by R.L. Shep in 2000. The purpose of this award is to encourage the study and understanding of textile traditions by recognizing and rewarding exceptional scholarship that focuses on textiles through the lens of cultural practices and ancestral heritage. Books are reviewed by the R. L. Shep Memorial Book Award Committee.
For more about the award, please use the links or buttons below:
• Click here to read Roy Hamilton’s remembrance of R.L. Shep.
• Click here for more information about the award process and eligibility.
• Click here to nominate a book published in 2023
Image: Tent Hanging or Coverlet (Djerbi) (detail). Possibly from Laghouat, Algeria, c. 1850-1900. The Art Institute of Chicago, Major Acquisitions Fund, 2003.175. Creative Commons Zero (CC0).
Previous winners of the R. L. Shep Memorial Book Award (previous title: R.L. Shep Ethnic Textiles Book Award):
2022 Sylvia Houghteling, Art of Cloth in Mughal India Princeton University Press.
2021 Sylvia Fraser-Lu, Textiles in Burman Culture, Silkworm Books.
2020 Barrkman, Joanna ed. Aboriginal Screen Printed Textiles from Australia’s Top End, University of California Los Angeles, Fowler Museum of Cultural History.
2019 P. R. J. Ford, The Persian Carpet Tradition: Six Centuries of Design Evolution, London: Hali Publications.
2018 Alit Djajasoebrata, Flowers from Universe: Textiles of Java. LM Publishers.
2017 Forni, Silvia and Doran H. Ross, Art, Honour, Ridicule: Fante Asafo Flags from Southern Ghana. Royal Ontario Museum and Fowler Museum, UCLA.
2016 Edwards, Eiluned Block Printed Textiles of India: Imprints of Culture. Niyogi Books, New Delhi.
2015 Mackie, Louise W. Symbols of Power: Luxury Textiles from Islamic Lands, 7th – 21st Century. Cleveland, OH and New Haven and London: Cleveland Museum of Art and Yale University Press, 2015.
2015 Caldeira, Leah, Christina Hellmich, Adrienne L. Kaeppler, Betty Lou Kam, and Roger G. Rose, eds. Royal Hawaiian Featherwork: Nā Hulu Ali’i. San Francisco and Honolulu: Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco and University of Hawaii Press, 2015.
2014 Ralph Isaacs Sazigyo, Burmese Manuscript Binding Tapes: Woven Miniatures of Buddhist Art. Silkworm books of Chiang Mai, Thailand.
2013 Elizabeth Wayland Barber and Barbara Belle Sloan Resplendent Dress from Southeastern Europe: a History in Layers. University of Washington Press.
2012 Zhao, Feng (Chinese editor) and Deiter Kuhn (English editor) Chinese Silks. Yale University Press (New Haven and London) and Foreign Languages Press (Beijing).
2011 Marchese, Ronald and Marlene Breu, Splendor & Pageantry: Textile Treasures from the Armenian Orthodox Churches of Istanbul. Eden, South Dakota: Nettlebury Publications, 2010 [not available until March 2011].
2010 Edited by Ruth Barnes and Mary Hunt Kahlenberg, Five Centuries of Indonesian Textiles, Published by DelMonico Books-Prestel
2009 Bruce Bourque and Laureen LaBar, Uncommon Threads: Wabanaki Textiles, Clothing and Costume, published by the Maine State Museum, Augusta, in association with The University of Washington Press, Seattle and London.
2008 Andrew Morrall and Melinda Watt, English Embroideries ‘Twixt Art and Nature 1500-1700, Published in Association with the Bard Graduate Centre for Studies in the Decorative Arts, Design and Culture
2007 Roy W. Hamilton and B. Lynne Milgram, Material Choices: Refashioning Bast and Leaf Fibers in Asia and the Pacific,Los Angeles: The Fowler Museum at UCLA.
2006 Sherry Rehman and Naheed Jafri, The Kashmiri Shawl, from Jamavar to Paisley, Ahmedabad: Mapin Publishing Pvt. Ltd.
2005 David W. Fraser and Barbara G. Fraser, Mantles of Merit: Chin Textiles from Myanmar, India and Bangladesh. Bangkok, Thailand: River Books
J. C. H. King, Birgit Pauksztat and Robert Storrie, eds. Arctic Clothing of North America – Alaska, Canada, Greenland. Montreal & Kingston, Ithaca: McGill-Queen’s University Press
2004 Patricia Marks Greenfield, Weaving Generations Together: Evolving Creativity in the Maya of Chiapas, Santa Fe: School of American Research Press
2003 Gillian Green, Traditional Textiles of Cambodia – Cultural Threads and Material Heritage, Buppha Press, Chicago
2003 Janet Catherine Berlo and Patricia Cox Crews, Wild by Design: Two Hundred Years of Innovation and Artistry in American Quilts, University of Washington Press
2002 Monisha Ahmed, Living Fabric: Weaving Among the Nomads of Ladakh Himalaya, Orchid Press of Bangkok, Thailand
2001 Katharine Larson, The Woven Coverlets of Norway, University of Washington Press
2000 Nurhan Atasoy, Otag-I Humayun: The Ottoman Imperial Tent Complex, MEPA (Medya Pazarlama Taskin ve Ticaret, A.S.), Istanbul
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