Waller survived the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands during WWII and settled in Palo Alto with her husband, an American journalist, in 1951. She rediscovered an earlier interest in textiles in the 1960s, joined several of the local guilds, and began making and showing large-scale works of fiber art in the 1960s and 1970s. She was also a member of the art faculty at the College of Notre Dame from 1968-1973. Waller did not achieve national or international recognition for her work but was known locally through her teaching and participation in exhibitions that toured around California in the late 1960s and early 1970s and through a later retrospective at Villa Montalvo in Saratoga.
Waller’s range of chosen textile techniques included dyeing, embroidery, and rug-hooking, which are well-represented in these five works, which include both the large-scale, highly textured pile wall hangings on which she concentrated in the 1970s and 1980s, and the smaller embroideries she was known for in the 1960s and early 1970s. Waller often dyed her own yarns and all but one of the offered pieces demonstrates her love of exuberant color.
The family has dated the large pieces to about 1980. However, stylistically they align most closely with the large-scale, heavily textural and dimensional fiber pieces being made in the late 1960s and early 1970s by fiber artists across the U.S. and Europe, as seen in publications such as Constantine and Larsen’s Beyond Craft: The Art Fabric and The Art Fabric: Mainstream, and Eudorah Moore’s California Design catalogues of that era. Although Waller’s work does not represent the cutting edge of fiber around 1980 it can stand in for this earlier style, perhaps suggesting that it had lasting appeal. The museum’s fiber collection currently has nothing like Waller’s pieces and this seems like a good opportunity to strengthen our holdings in the area. And as an artist active in and nurtured by the local guilds Waller’s work also relates to the museum’s own guild origins.