How To Hook Rugs Helen Martin King 1952 1st Arkansas Folk Art

Batesville, Arkansas: Mrs. Harry King, 1952. First edition. Large-format illustrated hardcover. Distributed by John Dritz & Sons, New York 10, N.Y. Lithographed and bound in U.S.A. (D. P. & L. Co., Little Rock). Privately issued mid-century American rug-hooking manual featuring detailed instructions, shading techniques, dye guidance, and 42 indexed pattern plates. Includes a notable 'Ten Popular Color Blends with Putnam Fadeless Dyes' reference page (Monroe Chemical Company, Quincy, Illinois), reflecting period textile practices. Designs include floral scrolls, wreaths, roses, ovals, and traditional motifs associated with mid-century American craft revival movements. This copy bears only a neat ex libris name and faint ghosting from a former penciled price on the front flyleaf; no other markings observed. Pages are clean and bright throughout. A particularly handsome and well-preserved example of a regional 1950s craft imprint. Photo from Life Magazine, p.44 (January 29, 1940) shown in photo gallery for historical/human interest only and is not a part of this listed item. Helen Martin King (1895-1988) was a prominent mid-20th-century Arkansas rug-hooking artist and designer whose work gained national attention during the American craft revival era. A native of Powhatan, Arkansas, she studied at the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music, the Ohio Mechanical Institute, the Cincinnati Art Museum, and Sophie Newcomb College in New Orleans before returning to Batesville. By the 1940s she had earned recognition in Life magazine and National Geographic, and she went on to teach rug hooking and design patterns into the 1960s. Today her hooked rugs are considered rare and highly collectible within American folk art circles. (Biographical notes courtesy of Lyon College Special Collections, Regional Studies Center.).…