8 The artist Olga de Amaral is one of the leading figures in the creation of textiles as art, known for her radical experimentation in materials such as horsehair and gold leaf. Her unique language of abstraction, enriched by the natural landscape and architectural history of her native Colombia, is enchanting. The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, has collected the work of Amaral over the last fifteen years. Our first piece came in 2006 as a gift of Carol Straus, a collector of contem- porary fiber and longtime supporter of the Museum. Then, Leatrice and Melvin Eagle made four additional gifts. In 2019 Anna Walker, Assistant Curator, Decorative Arts, Craft, and Design, under the direction of Cindi Strauss, the Morgan Curator of Decorative Arts, Craft, and Design, acquired an important early piece by the artist. With such substantial holdings, we are proud to partner with Cranbrook Art Museum on Olga de Amaral: To Weave a Rock , the first large-scale retrospective in North America and the most comprehensive exhibition of Amaral’s work to date. At the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, we are grateful to Andrew Blauvelt, Director at Cranbrook Art Museum, and his team for initiating conversations about this exhibition. His colleague Laura Mott, Senior Curator of Contemporary Art and Design, worked in tandem with our own Anna Walker to organize the project and bring it to fruition, and we congrat- ulate them. We are grateful to the artist, her husband, Jim Amaral, and their family for their generosity in supporting the scholarship of this project and for providing images detailing the exquisite nature of Olga de Amaral’s work. After opening at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Olga de Amaral: To Weave a Rock will travel to the Museum of Arts and Design in New York, Cranbrook Art Museum, and the Textile Museum in Washington, DC. We expect that audiences will be enthralled by Amaral’s work and recognize her rightful place as one of the seminal artists of the last half-century. Gary Tinterow Director, The Margaret Alkek Williams Chair, The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston