Pattern & Decoration (1970s–1980s): How Ornament Rewired American Abstraction

Think quilts, tiles, mosaics, and wallpaper—then scale them up, mix them with painting, and let pattern carry big ideas. That’s the Pattern & Decoration movement (P&D): a 1970s wave that turned “decorative” into a bold language of abstraction, often led by women artists and inspired by global craft traditions.

What was “Pattern & Decoration”?

Pattern & Decoration was a U.S. art movement that blossomed in the early-to-mid 1970s and ran through the 1980s. It embraced ornament, repetition, and craft-based techniques as serious tools for painting, collage, ceramics, textiles, mosaic, and even performance. The aim wasn’t a return to prettiness—it was to propose another kind of rigor: intelligence embedded in structure, rhythm, fabric, and tile. For a concise museum overview, see the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art’s survey With Pleasure: Pattern and Decoration in American Art 1972–1985.

Why it erupted in the 1970s

The 1970s art world prized spare Minimalist objects and cool Conceptual strategies. P&D pushed back. Against claims that ornament was “minor” or “merely craft,” these artists argued that pattern held history, memory, identity, and global knowledge. Their work intersected with second‑wave feminism and a growing interest in non‑Western art histories. A useful tour of the movement’s scope and artists is the Hessel Museum’s presentation of With Pleasure.

To see the postwar backdrop P&D reacted against—gestural intensity on one hand and serene fields on the other—dip into our clear primer on Abstract Expressionism.

Sources & influences: from prints and tiles to Vienna grids

Non‑Western ornament

P&D artists studied Islamic tessellation, Middle Eastern embroidery, Indian and Iranian carpets, Mexican and Roman mosaics, and more. Pattern wasn’t a guilty pleasure—it was a visual logic. Repetition, rotation, and modular symmetry became tools for building meaning.

Japanese ukiyo‑e & pattern as design

Flat planes, clear edges, and surface rhythm—traits of Japanese woodblock prints—fed Western modernism and re‑emerged in P&D’s love for designed surfaces. If you’re new to that print world, start with our hands‑on guide to ukiyo‑e.

Nabis flatness & borders

In fin‑de‑siècle Paris, Les Nabis treated paintings like designed surfaces—flat color bounded by strong contour and patterned frames. P&D picked up that thread and ran with it. For a quick refresher, see our overview of Les Nabis.

Vienna Secession’s grids & gleam

Think Klimt’s planar gold and Josef Hoffmann’s square grids—ornament sharpened by structure. That mix of radiance and discipline is a clear ancestor to P&D. Explore the look in our guide to the Vienna Secession.

A European case study of this lineage is the exhibition thesis “ornament as promise,” outlined by mumok in Vienna— a museum presentation that reframed P&D’s global and feminist stakes. Read the exhibition page at mumok.

Four artists who make the movement legible

Miriam Schapiro

Schapiro coined the term femmage to describe collages that stitch painting together with fabric, ribbons, rickrack, and patterned paper—materials historically coded as “women’s work.” Her projects linked studio and home, honoring techniques passed through hands as much as schools. In 1972, with Judy Chicago, she co‑organized Womanhouse, an immersive environment where domestic space became the gallery; the project’s spirit—turning the decorative into a platform for thought—runs straight into P&D.

Joyce Kozloff

Kozloff knit cartography, mosaic, and tile into wall‑spanning works that celebrate the intelligence of pattern. In Philadelphia’s Suburban Station, her Topkapi Pullman (1985) folds Art Deco rail romance into Ottoman‑style arabesques, suggesting that movement through the world is also movement across visual traditions.

Valerie Jaudon

Jaudon’s canvases braid interlaced bands and arabesques into precise, often symmetrical systems. The effect is both musical and architectural: a puzzle you read by following intervals, crossings, and repeats. Her writing—alongside Joyce Kozloff—helped articulate why “decorative” had been unfairly devalued.

Robert Kushner

Kushner fused floral motifs with textile sensibility—gold leaf, patterned grounds, and veils of color. Early on he staged performances in hand‑sewn costumes; later, his paintings and mosaics extended that flair for surface into vivid, contemporary ornament.

For a Schapiro‑centered lens on the decorative’s comeback in contemporary practice, see the Museum of Arts and Design’s exhibition Surface/Depth: The Decorative After Miriam Schapiro.

Materials, methods, and how to read P&D

Mini studio exercise

Take a postcard of a P&D work. Trace the repeat unit; mark axes of symmetry; color one motif across the surface. You’ll feel how pattern organizes attention—like a rhythm section under a solo.

The debate: “Ornament and Crime”? Not so fast.

For decades, Western art hierarchies treated decoration as lesser—useful in textiles or interiors, but suspect in “serious” painting. P&D flipped that script. Artists and writers argued that dismissing ornament also dismissed the histories of women’s labor and the art of many cultures outside the Western canon. A contemporaneous chorus—especially Valerie Jaudon and Joyce Kozloff—showed how such biases were built into criticism itself. Their arguments, and later scholarship about how Islamic ornament shaped P&D’s imagination, remain essential further reading: Heresies #4 and A Meeting of Two Minds (Goldin & Grabar).

Exhibitions & legacy

One‑minute timeline

From 1970s group shows to twenty‑first‑century surveys, presentations of P&D have reframed the movement as a foundational chapter in post‑1960s art. For a concise scholarly recap with further bibliography, see the review of MOCA’s survey at Journal Panorama.

You’ll also sense P&D’s echo in contemporary practices—from installation and public mosaic to textile‑forward painting. Its delight in surfaces intersects with the sampling instinct of post‑1960s art; if you’re tracing that thread through pop culture’s print‑happy world, our guide to Pop Art offers a helpful foil.

Where to see Pattern & Decoration (now and next)

Many museums in the U.S. and Europe hold P&D works and have recently re‑exhibited them. Look for large‑scale Schapiro femmages, Kozloff mosaics and map-based paintings, Jaudon’s interlaced geometries, and Kushner’s floral abstractions. Survey catalogues and museum essays—already linked above—are great launch pads for planning visits and study.

FAQ

What is the Pattern & Decoration movement in one sentence?

A 1970s–1980s current in American art that used ornament, craft techniques, and global pattern traditions to reinvent abstraction.

Who are the key artists to learn first?

Miriam Schapiro, Joyce Kozloff, Valerie Jaudon, and Robert Kushner form a clear starting quartet; from there, explore Kim MacConnel, Ned Smyth, and others who turned rooms and walls into pattern environments.

What techniques did P&D artists use?

Collage with fabric and paper, sewing and applique, stencils and repeats, silkscreen on cloth, tile and mosaic, hand‑painted floors and walls, plus mural‑scale canvases built on modular systems.

How is P&D different from Pop Art or Minimalism?

Pop quotes mass‑media images; Minimalism pares form to its basics. P&D prioritizes ornament and surface itself—often lushly—while keeping a clear underlying structure (grids, repeats, axes).

Why do critics link P&D to feminism?

Because it elevates materials and methods historically associated with women’s labor—quilting, embroidery, textile design—and argues that these practices carry intellectual and cultural weight equal to any “high art” medium.

What global traditions influenced P&D?

Islamic tessellation and arabesque, Indian and Iranian carpets, Mexican and Roman mosaics, Japanese woodblock prints, Ottoman and Turkish textiles, and the broader decorative arts of many cultures.

Where can I see Pattern & Decoration today?

In museum collections across the U.S. and Europe and in recent survey exhibitions; consult the museum overview links above to plan visits and reading.