Music, from series The Cupid Prints

In 1969, Robert Kushner was studying art at the University of California San Diego. In a germinal moment for the Pattern and Decoration movement, the visiting art critic Amy Goldin introduced him to Islamic art and textiles, urging him to consider, “What are the boundaries of artmaking and how could you transgress them?” After Kushner traveled with Goldin to Turkey, Iran, and Afghanistan, the organic, floral imagery he saw on carpets and weavings became a central motif for him. His interest in James McNeill Whistler’s orientalist Peacock Room (1876–1877) is also apparent in this work.