On November 15, a dozen Kendalites gathered for a trip to Manhattan’s Cooper-Hewitt museum for a docent-led tour of the A Dark, A Light, A Bright: The Designs of Dorothy Liebes exhibit.
According to the Cooper-Hewitt:
“American textile designer, weaver, and color authority Dorothy Liebes (1897–1972) had a profound influence across design fields, helping to shape American tastes in areas from interiors and transportation to industrial design, fashion, and film. The “Liebes Look” — which combined vivid color, lush texture, and often a glint of metallic—became inextricably linked with the American modern aesthetic.
From the 1930s through the 1960s, Liebes collaborated with some of the most prominent architects and designers of the time, including Frank Lloyd Wright, Henry Dreyfuss, Donald Deskey, Raymond Loewy, and Samuel Marx. Fashion designers, including Pauline Trigère, Adrian, and Bonnie Cashin, also used her fabrics, yielding some of the most distinctively American fashions of the mid-20th century.
Despite widespread recognition during Liebes’s lifetime, her powerful impact on 20th-century design remains largely unacknowledged. Featuring more than 175 works — including textiles, textile samples, fashion, furniture, documents, and photographs—this exhibition reveals the scope of her achievements and adds a new thread to the story of mid-century modernism.”
While the items on exhibit were of great interest, the consensus was that the whole was much greater than the sum of its parts. Yes, there was wonderful art, weaving, and new approaches to color combinations, but also the story of a talented woman in a man’s world; a successful woman who worked with architects including Frank Lloyd Wright; a successful woman whose fabrics were used in Bonnie Cashin clothing; a designer who worked with Dupont to create textiles using new materials now used in drapes, upholstery and even airplane seats. And many other layers beyond.
And best of all, Kendal’s own Shirley Wu Sanger was a weaver in the Liebes studio. And some of her samples and pictures are part of the show.
But when Kendalites are involved, you know that’s not the end. The docent who provided the excellent “Liebes Look” talk was Charlotte von Hardenburgh, a Research Fellow at Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum, who worked on the curatorial team for the Liebes exhibition. As a curator and educator, Charlotte’s work highlights the influential yet underrepresented role of women within design and her research centers on these narratives to establish a more expansive and inclusive re-interpretation of American design history.
The enthusiastic Kendalites who heard Charlottes talk have excited other residents both about the exhibit and Charlotte and are now working together to bring her to lecture at Kendal. They’re looking at Sunday January 14. The lecture would highlight projects directly from the current Liebes exhibition and would feature original textiles woven by Shirley Wu-Zanger during her time in the Liebes studio. Stay tuned!