The Spirit Of Rene Ricard Lives On In A New Collection Of Rugs

Madeline Weinrib vividly recalls the day she first met the renowned poet, painter and art critic Rene Ricard, who is widely credited with putting Jean Paul Basquiat, Julian Schnabel, and Keith Haring on the proverbial map, in his apartment in the Hotel Chelsea. “My friend Cody Franchetti knew him and asked if I wanted to meet him. I was very aware of his art criticism and intimidated by him. I was going as a groupie, I never thought we’d be friends.” Yet they did become fast friends and, for the most part, remained so from that time (which was around 1999) until his death in 2014 at the age of 67.

Earlier this month, Weinrib, an artist and long-time textile and carpet designer, introduced five rugs that she and Ricard had designed together, in a show titled “Flower Beneath the Foot” at Emma Scully Gallery in New York City. Those familiar with Ricard’s paintings will recognize his contribution. His paintings often featured text layered over imagery; the rugs feature his own handwriting laid over Weinrib’s designs, in a process that started in 2009. “It was about a creative person layering another creative person’s work and that they come together. He had written poems on my rug drawings. We looked at them and thought they would be beautiful and a natural collaboration, as opposed to a transactional collaboration or a business.”

Weinrib brought a wealth of experience and knowledge to that collaboration. Her grandfather founded ABC Carpet in the late 1800s, with a shop on 28th Street and Third Avenue in New York City. In 1960 the store moved to 19th Street and Broadway where it ultimately occupied six floors, plus a space across the street, and became the destination for all things home. Weinrib was already an established painter when she began exploring rug design; she launched her first carpet collection in the late 1990s and in 2004 opened her namesake atelier on the 6th floor of ABC Carpet & Home. “The art world at the time looked down on design. When I started working in design, Rene loved it. We both thought it was irreverent.” (Today, ABC Carpet & Home still exists, albeit greatly diminished; Weinrib’s rug and textile business flourished, but in 2018 she decided to close it and focus on other creative pursuits, including these rugs).

There are several reasons it took over a decade to birth the rugs. Ricard was very particular. He wanted the Nepal-based weavers, who Weinrib had worked with for decades, to properly understand and recreate his hand writing in hand spun Tibetan wool.

“We worked for years, going back and forth with just the word “Madeline,” noted Weinrib. “They ultimately used ten different shades of grey to make his writing to his specific asks. He finally signed off on his text, we started to make the rug, and he died two weeks before it came in. I was heartbroken and put them aside.”

In 2021, Vito Schnabel (son of artist Julian Schnabel) presented Rene Ricard: Growing Up in America in his eponymous Chelsea gallery. Weinrib chose to debut the rug “You’re Stepping All Over Me,” at that show.

Last fall, at the New York City edition of Brussels’ Collectible Design Fair, Emma Scully Gallery presented two additional rugs: “The Flower Beneath the Foot” and “Now I Lay Me Down.” The current show at Emma Scully includes all of the aforementioned, plus “Just Get Over Me” and “Madeline.”

Will there be more? “I started to think about making another one,” she admits. “For me, this is a creative project I do for the love of doing it, to engage my creativity, and to keep my conversation with Rene going. It’s a really beautiful way to stay connected to him.”

Flower Beneath the Foot is on view by appointment at Emma Scully Galllery, 16 East 79th Street, Suite 21, New York City (through June 20); EmmaScully.com. The rugs are also available at Christopher Farr, 748 N. La Cienega Blvd, in Los Angeles; ChristopherFarr.com