Publications and Media

A Dark, A Light, A Bright: The Designs of Dorothy Liebes co-edited with Susan Brown

The first major publication devoted to weaver and designer Dorothy Liebes, reinstating her as one of the most influential American designers of the twentieth century

Winner of the 2024 George Wittenborn Memorial Award

At the time of her death, Dorothy Liebes (1897–1972) was called “the greatest modern weaver and the mother of the twentieth-century palette.” As a weaver, she developed a distinctive combination of unusual materials, lavish textures, and brilliant colors that came to be known as the “Liebes Look.” Yet despite her prolific career and recognition during her lifetime, Liebes is today considerably less well known than the men with whom she often collaborated, including Frank Lloyd Wright, Henry Dreyfuss, and Edward Durrell Stone. Her legacy also suffered due to the inability of the black-and-white photography of the period to represent her richly colored and textured works.

Extensively researched and illustrated with full-color, accurate reproductions, this important publication examines Liebes’s widespread impact on twentieth-century design. Essays explore major milestones of her career, including her close collaborations with major interior designers and architects to create custom textiles, the innovative and experimental design studio where she explored new and unusual materials, her use of fabrics to enhance interior lighting, and her collaborations with fashion designers, including Clare Potter and Bonnie Cashin. Ultimately, this book reinstates Liebes at the pinnacle of modern textile design alongside such recognized figures as Anni Albers and Florence Knoll.

To Purchase: A Dark, A Light, A Bright: The Textiles of Dorothy Liebes

Textile Technology and Design: From Interior Space to Outer Space

Textile Technology and Design addresses the critical role of the interior at the intersection of design and technology, with a range of interdisciplinary arguments by a wide range of contributors: from design practitioners to researchers and scholars to aerospace engineers. Chapters examine the way in which textiles and technology – while seemingly distinct – continually inform each other through their persistent overlapping of interests, and eventually coalesce in the practice of interior design.

Covering all kinds of interiors from domestic (prefabricated kitchens and 3D wallpaper) to extreme (underwater habitats and space stations), it features a variety of critical aspects including pattern and ornament, domestic technologies, craft and the imperfect, gender issues, sound and smart textiles. This book is essential reading for students of textile technology, textile design and interior design.

To purchase: Textile Technology and Design: From Interior Space to Outer Space

A Striking Juxtaposition: Handwoven Textiles in the United Nations Conference Building Interiors

This article considers the history and significance of three major hand-woven textile projects commissioned for the United Nations Conference Building, which opened in 1952: the room dividing screens by Dorothy Liebes for the Delegates Dining Room, the tapestry curtain by Marianne Richter for the Economic and Social Council Chamber, and the drapes by Paula Trock for the Trusteeship Council Chamber. In each case, the textiles played pivotal roles in these interiors. They provided visual focus, softened glare, carved out private spaces within exposed open plan interiors, and provided tactile and visual richness within the building’s somewhat hard surfaces. The work of Richter, Trock, and Liebes contributed a much-needed vocabulary of warmth, texture, and humanity to United Nations complex. Caustic fireproofing materials damaged these textiles and changing tastes minimized their significance within the building’s historical narrative. This essay seeks to redress this lack of knowledge about the works, expanding the history of modernist architecture.

To read the article: A Striking Juxtaposition