NEW YORK — The industriousness of certainly one of America’s most completed multidisciplinary designers, Dorothy Liebes, is on full show at a brand new exhibition at Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum right here.
As a textile designer, weaver and colour authority, she collaborated with such skills as Bonnie Cashin, Adrian, Frank Lloyd Wright, Raymond Loewy and Samuel Marx from the Thirties to the ’60s. Working throughout sectors, Liebes had a hand in style, interiors, costume design, transportation and industrial design, combining vivid colours and fascinating textures to assist modernize mid-Twentieth century design.
On view on the Higher East Facet museum via Sept. 4, “A Darkish, A Gentle, A Shiny: The Designs of Dorothy Liebes” showcases textiles, style, furnishings, private paperwork and pictures. That includes greater than 175 works — together with textiles, textile samples, style, furnishings, paperwork and pictures — the exhibition reveals her agility and hints at her curiosity in early modernist work.
Dorothy Liebes Studio, New York Metropolis, as photographed for Home Lovely, October 1966; Dorothy Liebes Papers, Archives of American Artwork, Smithsonian Establishment
Courtesy of © Smithsonian Establishment
A pure networker who traveled all through the U.S. and overseas to grasp what different designers did, Liebes stored up with them because the years ticked by, in line with Alexa Griffith, who curated the exhibition with Susan Brown. Liebes’ archives function Christmas playing cards from notables like Noguchi and Henri Cartier-Bresson. Her Rolodex was crammed with different well-known names like Henry Dreyfuss, Donald Deskey and Pauline Trigère — a lot of whom weren’t merely enterprise contacts however real buddies like Cashin, who Liebes teamed with many times. A great quantity of her contacts have been compiled within the lead-up to Liebes serving as the chief director of the ornamental arts pavilion on the Golden Gate Worldwide Exposition, which was staged in her house state within the late Thirties.
Nature was one other main inspiration supply, whether or not that be how Lurex could possibly be used to resemble daylight glowing on the water or a panache for the inexperienced and blue palette akin to the colours of bushes and the sky, Griffith stated. Enthralled by textile historical past, Liebes jetted off to Guatemala and different nations to find out about age-old methods. Nearer to house, she sought out authorities on the Institute of High quality Arts on such topics as Persian velvet specialists whereas learning for her grasp’s in New York. Her curiosity prolonged to European designers like Elsa Schiaparelli.
Armchair, Chicago, Illinois, 1938. Designed by Donald Deskey (American, 1894-1989); manufactured by Royal Steel Manufacturing Firm; upholstery designed by Dorothy Liebes (American, 1897-1972); chrome-plated metallic and upholstered material.
Courtesy of The Artwork Institute of Chicago / Artwork Useful resource, NY
Not simply interested by aesthetics and structure, she was intrigued by how textiles functioned inside interiors to form house and management gentle, in line with Brown. Her personal private type was one other level of distinction and media descriptions. That elan helped facilitate her offering materials to producers of hats, footwear and purses.
“Vogue was very a lot a via line from the start of her profession,” Brown stated. “Though she did have a posh relationship with it. She was interviewed and acknowledged as a design authority in shelter magazines. However style, in fact, tried to withhold the names of the individuals who designed the textiles.”
Noting how there are few examples the place the textiles designer is known as within the style context, she stated an exception is Liebes’ collaboration with Cashin for skirts, the place they’re equally recognized for that mission. The Cooper Hewitt present demonstrates how design historical past has moved on from antiquated stereotypes, the place girls weren’t acknowledged for his or her contributions.
Pattern card, circa 1945. Designed by Dorothy Wright Liebes (American, 1897–1972); plain-woven cotton, viscose rayon, silk, imitation leather-based (styrene/butyl methacrylate), zein-coated cotton woven tape.
Matt Flynn/Courtesy of © Smithsonian Establishment
Liebes gravitated towards textile design early on, and he or she additionally grasped the enterprise facet by recognizing alternatives and what added worth she might provide, comparable to luxurious textile materials for interiors that producers and inside decorators might serve as much as their purchasers.
Whereas working in Hollywood, Liebes met Cashin, who was working as head costume designer at Twentieth Century Fox at the moment. “The story goes that Bonnie noticed a gorgeous material on a chair and stated she wished to make a coat out if it,” Brown stated, including that led to customized work and a detailed friendship.
Liebes’ textiles weren’t simply sought out by the esteemed Head, however they have been by others like Cedric Gibbons and Travis Banton. The New York transplant additionally crafted interiors for Hollywood energy gamers like Joan Crawford.
Regardless of “searching and searching” for the 18-minute “Magnificence by Design” movie that was made when Liebes labored with DuPont, the curators have but to seek out it. Though there are a couple of video clips featured within the present, they’re hopeful extra footage could floor since Liebes frequently appeared on TV.
Dorothy Liebes in her Powell Road studio, San Francisco, 1938. {Photograph} by Louise Dahl-Wolfe (American, 1895–1989); Dorothy Liebes Papers, Archives of American Artwork, Smithsonian Establishment; {Photograph} © Heart for Inventive Pictures, Arizona Board of Regents.
Heart for Inventive Pictures, Arizona Board of Regents/Courtesy of © Smithsonian Establishment
As for why Liebes “vanished from the narrative of American design historical past shortly after her dying,” it was partially associated to her not having had any kids “to keep up her legacy or to arrange her property,” Brown stated.
Cashin mentioned attempting to maintain the studio going after her dying, however that proved to “not be attainable,” Brown added. As well as, the early ’70s sparked an curiosity in fiber artwork, she added. And being undefinable could have been a deterrent. “The scope of her profession is so big that it’s been a bit laborious for individuals to discover a means in,” Brown stated.
Having spent 15-plus years researching Liebes’ work, Griffith agreed. “She was deeply interested by design within the broadest sense and was actually collaborating in that dialog, from carpet consulting to worldwide work, like attempting to revive the textile trade after the warfare and her fascinating work in style with Cashin. There are such a lot of fascinating parts to her story that it resisted a traditional design historical past narrative. As a lot as she was omnipresent in magazines and newspapers throughout her life, all the work that she did with Wright or Marx was deleted in favor of the story of the legend of the architect.”
Liebes opened a design studio in San Francisco in 1930 and maintained it for years. Her first marriage to Leon Liebes, whose prosperous household owned the division retailer H. Liebes & Co., resulted in divorce. Her unpublished memoir described how he couldn’t tolerate her eager to be a designer, and he or she couldn’t settle for that, Griffith stated. “In response to her, that’s why she left that marriage in the course of the [Great] Melancholy along with her garments and loom.”
After wedding ceremony the American journalist Relman Morin, Liebes and her new husband moved to the East Coast, the place she arrange a New York studio in 1948 that turned her predominant one after working two turned “actually overwhelming,” Brown stated. “Though she was a California lady via and thru and had all the time hoped to retire there, sadly she died in New York earlier than then.”
A “pretty beautiful” ’50s hostess apron with rows and rows of metallics from the gathering of style historian Sandy Schreier is a standout assertion within the present, Brown stated. One other attention-getter is among the collaborative Cashin skirts that after belonged to Gypsy Rose Lee and is now a part of the Brooklyn Museum’s assortment.
All in all, the joyfulness with which Liebes approached her work might inform future generations of designers, in line with Griffith. “You’ll be able to see that this was somebody who was very optimistic about American design and had an awesome ardour for it. The crossover between style and interiors is an fascinating story for younger designers to consider,” Brown stated.
Liebes’ popularity for revolutionary materials resonates as we speak, when renewable and sustainable supplies are of curiosity to “attempt to reverse a number of the harm that the style trade has triggered to the setting,” she stated.
After leaving her first husband “with something that she might get her arms on for monetary causes,” the designer confronted materials shortages as a result of World Conflict II rationing that led to her experimentation with alternate options to silk and different materials. Later throughout the post-war interval, an alliance with DuPont enabled her to form the fibers and synthetics world by getting her revolutionary fibers into carpets, upholstery, purses and style via her many private connections, Brown stated. She would additionally get suggestions about what labored and what didn’t.
“That a part of her work makes her very modern in feeling,” she added.
