Toni Tully

Toni Tully (1939-2010)

The sound of color, the lyric of line…what better words can be written to describe the works on paper, canvas, and cloth that Toni Tully created?

Beginning with abstract painting, Tully’s gestures on firm surfaces morphed into soft swirls on textiles. Working in her downtown loft studio with enough light and space to manage voluminous fabric, she began painting on silk, inspired by her time spent with Japanese artists, then turned to a process of transferring her mixed dyes from paper to fabric creating permanent pleats and shapes that resonated within this surround of color and line.

By training and experience, Tully was a painter and a seamstress. She showed paintings for many years and needlework was a consuming interest since childhood. Tully came from a long line of women who worked in the textile arts and studied methods of painting on textiles for many years.

Her exploration and love for making art was a lifelong searching process that took many forms. It was Tully’s dream that her passion would be known and enjoyed by those who viewed her work.

Space One Eleven Involvement: Exhibiting Artist: HearthStones 1991, Color into Cloth 2004, Now… and Then 2007, Sampler Part 1 2011, Relationships: Toni Tully 2012