For twenty-eight years, Dr. Florica Zaharia has been a member of the Department of Textile Conservation at The Metropolitan Museum of Art (The Met), thirteen years as Conservator in Charge of the Department, working with a group of world-renowned textile conservators.

After her retirement from The Met in 2016, she returned to her native country, Romania, and opened the “Textile Museum” with a collection that she and her family formed during the last few decades. Currently, Dr. Zaharia is a Conservator Emerita of The Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Co-Owner of the Muzeul Textilelor, Baita, Hunedoara County, Romania. Dr. Zaharia has researched, published, lectured, curated exhibitions, and taught on the subjects of tapestry conservation, textile materials and technology, Eastern European textiles, and textile conservation and preservation.

Dr. Zaharia’s education includes an M.A. with specialization in tapestry and textile structure and design, and a Ph.D. in Visual Arts with a focus on textile materials and technologies, and their impact on artifacts’ aesthetic qualities. Dr. Zaharia earned her academic degrees from the National University of Art Nicolae Grigorescu in Bucharest.

She finds pleasure in keeping the tradition alive and is an ethnography advocate.

It was at The Met that I began to see Romanian textiles in a larger context and to understand the relationships among textiles produced by various cultures. I grew up surrounded by textiles and their home production, as generations of women in my family were weavers. Some women wove from necessity, as that was required in a traditional lifestyle setting, others, like my mother, Victoria Tripon, wove passionately, mostly for the creative aspect of the weaving.

Get to know the master of textiles at #TEDxBucharest11.