Dorothy Liebes: Mother of Modern Weaving

Dorothy Liebes and the New York Studio Weavers Working at the Extra-Wide Loom, ca. 1963

If the holidays take you to New York City, see the exhibit A Dark, A Light, A Bright: The Designs of Dorothy Liebes at Cooper Hewitt. Considered "The Mother of Modern Weaving," Liebes (1897-1972) was born in Santa Rosa, California. After taking courses in teaching and art from State Teachers College in San Jose and the University of California, Berkeley, she studied weaving at Hull House in Chicago. Liebes learned traditional weaving forms in France, Italy, Guatemala, and Mexico before opening her first San Francisco studio in 1930 on Powell Street, where she specialized in custom hand-woven pieces for architects and interior designers.

An installation view of A Dark, a Light, a Bright: The Designs of Dorothy Liebes (Elliot Goldstein/Smithsonian Institution)

The weaver met the architect Frank Lloyd Wright in 1935, and he influenced her design philosophy. Liebes experimented with unconventional textures and materials, incorporating feathers, plastics, metallics, jute, ticker tape, leather strips, and bamboo into her textiles. Color was a "magic elixir" to her; she invented the twentieth-century color palette, combining brilliant clashing hues. Her company, Dorothy Liebes Design, Inc., grew to a staff of seventeen weavers, and she moved her studio to Sutter Street in 1937. A second studio followed in New York City, where she relocated full-time in 1948. 

Dorothy Liebes,  Mexican Plaid textile,ca. 1938, (Matt Flynn/Smithsonian Institution)

Along with Wright, Liebes collaborated with architects and designers Henry Dreyfuss, Donald Deskey, Raymond Loewy, and Samuel Marx. Fashion designers Clare Potter and Bonnie Cashin also utilized her fabrics. Realizing that only the wealthy could purchase her distinctive handwoven textiles that sparkled with metallic thread, Liebes worked to make them accessible. She developed relationships with manufacturers to replicate hand-weaving techniques on machine looms and partnered with the company that made the synthetic thread Lurex. The "Liebes Look" was well-established in mainstream America when its creator died in 1972.