Worcester Art Museum
Book Design / Catalog / Print
The Worcester Art Museum connects people, communities, and cultures through the experience of art. Their wide-ranging exhibitions tell global stories—from art made thousands of years ago to works being created today. The Museum’s collection of nearly 40,000 objects provides a foundation to connect visitors of all ages with art, artists, and the ideas they spark. With strong ties to both the local community and the international art world, the Worcester Art Museum is an essential cultural venue for Central Massachusetts and beyond.
Book Design / Catalog / Print
The Worcester Art Museum has an encyclopedic collection of tapestries, but many of them had been hidden from view for decades. To reintroduce these gems to the public and historians, alike, the museum’s curators dug through databases, archives, files, and storage spaces. The resulting show, From the Vault, Collecting Tapestries at the Worcester Art Museum, opened in May 2025. Stoltze was excited to partner with WAM on a catalog to commemorate this important exhibition, and spark further academic interest in the stunning collection.
Textiles inspired many of our design choices for the elegant, hardcover book. We paired WAM’s house typeface, GT America, with the serif stencil, Masqualero, to reflect the stitched rhythm of a tapestry’s surface. The fluid column structure echoes the raw edge of fabric, and the vertical image captions are a contrast to the horizontal body text, representing warp and weft. The book’s stitching is a warm gold—a color seen throughout the book, from the French Medieval pieces, to the Coptic Egyptian fragments.
Book Design / Catalog / Print
Stoltze was thrilled to partner with the Worcester Art Museum for their recent book, WAM 100. The handheld guide highlights 100 collection-defining artworks at the museum, with beautiful reproductions and new writing from the curatorial team. The included pieces span nearly three-and-a-half millennia, and a vast range of media, from stone, ceramic and iron, to painting, stained glass and video.
To honor this remarkable collection, we knew the book had to be a special object. The cover wrap is slick acetate, screen printed with dramatic, oversized letters. This clear material exposes the book’s red stitching on the spine. The covers are a collage of details from featured artwork, providing an intriguing glimpse of the interior.
WAM 100 replaces a handbook that was in circulation for over 30 years. Whether through the book or by visiting in person, we highly recommend exploring WAM’s expansive collection!
