Leslie Tillett, Tillett Tapestry of the Conquest of Mexico, 1965-1977. Hand embroidered silk on cotton cloth (manta); H: 28 in L: 100 ft. Denver Art Museum: Partial gift of the Tillett family; partial purchase with generous funds from Merle Chambers In Memory of Evelyn Hemmings Chambers; Alianza de las Artes Americanas; Theodore and Nancie Burkett; Mexican Society of Philadelphia; Ralph L. & Florence R. Burgess Trust; Florence R. & Ralph L. Burgess Trust; Jana and Fred Bartlit; Charles Hosmer Morse Foundation; bequest of Jacqueline Paley Wolber by exchange; and anonymous donors, 2018.303. © Estate of Leslie Tillett

Hernán Cortés landed on the gulf coast of Mexico in March 1519. By August 1521, the Aztec empire had fallen to the Spanish, irrevocably altering the balance of global power for the next three hundred years. The scope and impact of these events was immediately felt. 

The Tillett tapiz (tapestry), a one-hundred-foot long cotton cloth designed by Leslie Tillett, offers a modern interpretation of the events that transpired between 1519 and 1521. Tillett spent his early career near Cuernavaca, Mexico, where he and his brother designed printed cotton textiles and became part of an artistic circle that included Diego Rivera, Frida Kahlo, and Miguel Covarrubias. Inspired by Rivera’s murals, Tillett began designing the tapiz in 1965, modeling the work after the epic of the Norman conquest embroidered on the famed Bayeux tapestry. A visual narrative culled from both Native and Spanish accounts, the tapiz consists of a series of vignettes annotated with bilingual captions. Many of the scenes hew closely to the original image while in others the designer’s modifications, reveal his sensitivity and commitment to his subject. It took twelve years and countless hands to complete the tapiz. Five hundred years after the fact, it speaks to the enduring legacy of the conquest.

—VL