Penelope Sikelianos Duncan

ca. 1882/1883–1917 | Weaver, singer, performer, and collaborator in Greek-inspired arts communities

The weaving did not begin with Raymond Duncan’s name on a scarf. Penelope Sikelianos brought knowledge to the household and artistic community with which he became associated. The Gardner Museum’s textile account credits her with teaching him to weave. Another account of Eva Palmer’s experiments describes Raymond constructing a loom and Penelope threading it. These are different stages of making, and both help recover the skilled woman whose work can recede behind the better publicized man. [1,2]

Penelope was the sister of the poet Angelos Sikelianos. Her marriage to Raymond Duncan connected the Greek family to the American Duncan siblings and their experiments in dance, theatre, dress, and communal living. Published sources place the marriage around 1903 or 1904. Their son Menalkas was born in 1905. The couple traveled in Europe and the United States, and their Greek-inspired clothing drew press attention. Clothes were also evidence of their work: textiles had to be made before a philosophy of simple living could be worn. [1,3]

Her artistic activities included singing and performance as well as weaving. In Paris in 1906, her encounter with Eva Palmer helped move Eva toward an enduring engagement with Greek dress and music. Penelope invited her to Greece, where Eva met Angelos. The textile experiments around Natalie Barney’s Equivoque form another documented route into this circle. No additional personal or romantic relationship with Natalie is assumed. [2,3]

Penelope participated in the world of the Duncan Akademia, where craft, instruction, and performance supported an alternative way of living. Handmade textiles could meet household needs and also earn money through sale. The survival of objects and correspondence offers firmer evidence for this work than the contemporary fascination with unusual costumes. A letter from Penelope and Raymond to Isabella Stewart Gardner, dated February 1910, survives alongside his illustrated publication Hellenic Vases. It records an attempt to make contact with a powerful collector, although the museum cannot establish that Gardner received them.

She died in 1917, identified by Leontis as dying of tuberculosis in Davos. Her curtailed life should not be narrated solely as preparation for Eva’s festivals or Raymond’s later reputation. Within the Constellation, she represents the transmission of practical artistic knowledge across language, nationality, and household boundaries. Her weaving and performance helped give a modern experiment in antiquity its material form.