The Cleveland Museum of Art

Collection Online as of February 24, 2026

Different sized looped and knitted threads in pale browns and creams, creating an irregular hexagon shape. The structure is stiffened and overlaid to bring it into three dimensions, the lower left corner turned up and in on itself. A strip of loose loops cuts across from the middle left down to the lower left, and then all the way up to to upper right.

Shard

1981

Evelyn Svec Ward

(American, 1921–1989)
America
Sisal, henequen, ixtle, cotton, and linen thread; looped and knitted, shaped and stiffened
Overall: 152.4 x 147.3 x 26.7 cm (60 x 58 x 10 1/2 in.)
Gift of Pamela Elizabeth Ward in loving memory of her parents, William E. and Evelyn Svec Ward 2005.137
Location: Not on view

Description

During the mid 1950s, Ward resigned her position in the textile department at the Cleveland Museum of Art to devote full-time energy to her artistic career. In the ensuing decades she produced a steady output that creatively explored the textural effects of fiber and fabric. Shard, a large abstract relief panel, is a complex construction of threads of sisal, henequen, cotton, and linen - as well as ixtle, which she acquired in Oaxaca, Mexico, a region whose native cultures and rugged typography inspired much of her work.
  • Ward, Evelyn Svec, and William E. Ward. Evelyn Svec Ward: Retrospective. Westerville, Ohio: Otterbein College, 1990. p. 13, 37
  • Evelyn Svec Ward Retrospective. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (December 28, 1990-February 3, 1991).
  • {{cite web|title=Shard|url=false|author=Evelyn Svec Ward|year=1981|access-date=24 February 2026|publisher=Cleveland Museum of Art}}

Source URL:

https://www.clevelandart.org/art/2005.137