Photo-realism is sometimes considered to be the foundation of the European/American artistic vision. Carol Shinn has demonstrated the possibilities of the photorealist machine embroidered art. But the photo-realistic embroidery is an ancient Chinese tradition, carried on in the province of Suzhou.

“Suzhou or Su embroidery is one of the oldest embroidery techniques in the world… There are records of detailed embroidered pieces being produced in the Suzhou area around 200 BC, and of embroidered silk being used as maps in the second and third century AD. But it was during the Song Dynasty (960-1279) that the Suzhou style became prominent” China Style

Alan Hershman, a London collector, discusses Su embroidery technique:”This is what the Chinese call a cross-stitch embroidery – though it bears no relation to what we know as cross-stitch. Instead, the silks are used rather like a painter might use his brush with the stitches criss-crossing over one another. In fact, the Chinese call the technique needle-painting. Just look at the way in which they’ve managed to achieve all the graduations of flesh tones. That’s because they have six hundred and seventy different shade of colour available to them… This particular embroidery hung in the Chinese National Exhibition for seven years. I assumed that it must have been a copy of a European painting but despite extensive enquiries I’ve been unable to track down its source. The people at the Tate Gallery suggested that the sitter might have been Russian since China and Russia are in such close proximity so we think of her as ‘the Russian Lady’ though we have no real evidence for that.” Classic Stitches

In 1999, UCLA sponsored an exhibit, Threads of Light: Chinese Embroidery from Suzhou and the Photography of Robert Glenn Ketchum, which featured a collaboration between a Western photographer and the Su embroiderers. A review of the show reads “The collaboration opened up new worlds; photographic effects were taken to new heights of expression. Ketchum’s images inspired the embroiderers to stitch ‘from life,’ interpreting what the photograph showed, rather than what conventions of embroidery suggested.”

A more critical article (which raised concerns about the welfare of the embroiderers), described the difficulty of the collaboration “Because a project may take many years to complete, each assignment that SERI undertakes is considered very selectively with regard to merit, difficulty, and creative challenge, and the embroidery workers are given some say in this process. Ketchum’s intricate images of leaves and trees and grasses required the development of new approaches, special stitching, and formidable effort, apparently giving some of them pause.”