The Textile Museum | Mission & History

Mission & History

Mission Statement
The Textile Museum expands public knowledge and appreciation – locally, nationally and internationally – of the artistic merits and cultural importance of the world’s textiles.

George Hewitt Myers
1875-1957

To learn more about the founder of The Textile Museum and the history of the institution, visit our online exhibition Ahead of His Time: The Collecting Vision of George Hewitt Myers.

Buildings
The Textile Museum is housed in two historic buildings in the Kalorama neighborhood of Washington, D.C. Visitors enter the Museum through the former home of the Museum's founding family which was designed by John Russell Pope in 1913. Since 1925, the Museum's galleries have been located in an adjacent building purchased by George Hewitt Myers for this purpose. Large gardens behind the buildings are open to the public during Museum hours.

For more information on visiting the Museum, click here.

History
In 1925 George Hewitt Myers founded The Textile Museum with a collection of 275 rugs and 60 related textiles. Myers collected actively for the Museum until his death in 1957, at which time the collection had grown to encompass the textile arts of Africa, Asia and Latin America. In Myers' time, the Museum was open by appointment only and received several hundred visitors annually. Today, The Textile Museum is one of the world's foremost specialized art museums and receives 25,000 to 35,000 visitors each year from around the world.

An exterior view of The Textile Museum

The Textile Museum garden