Mrs. Adler Schnee originally silk-screened her graphic designs onto rough-textured cotton, but the exhibit only offers a few vintage examples. Most of the 30 textiles on display are recent translations of these same patterns into woven fabrics of far richer colors. They are still being made by Anzea Textiles based in Fort Worth, Texas, and Unika Vaev of Norwich, Conn.
Much more of Mrs. Adler Schnee's fascinating life and career unfolds in the film, which was produced by Ms. Eisenbach and Michigan-based filmmaker Terri Sarris. This enjoyable biopic tells how the German-born designer and her family fled the Nazis in 1939 to settle in Detroit. The young refugee won a scholarship to Rhode Island School of Design and went on to earn a graduate degree in architectural design at Cranbrook Academy of Art.
Between her studies, she worked for renowned industrial designer Raymond Loewy on logos for Shell Oil and Coca-Cola. "I never took a textile class in my life, but don't tell anybody," Mrs. Adler Schnee says with a laugh in the film.
A 1946 house design, complete with brightly colored draperies, led to her first commissions for fabrics. As a textile designer, she came to collaborate with Frank Lloyd Wright, Buckminster Fuller and Minoru Yamasaki, the architect of the destroyed World Trade Center towers in New York.
Like Ray Eames, Anni Albers and other female designers, Mrs. Adler Schnee found textiles to be a creative outlet at a time when women were shut out of the professional world. "I knew I wasn't going to be an architect because they weren't hiring Jews or women," she says in the film.
Husband Edward Schnee, who died in 2001, helped to produce the silkscreened fabric designs and choose their names. From the 1950s to the 1970s, the couple ran a store in downtown Detroit specializing in modern furnishings.
Now 86, Mrs. Adler Schnee continues to design textiles for Anzea and interior projects. By focusing on current versions of her past prints, the exhibit stresses the vitality of her work and its relevance to contemporary design.
WHAT: Ruth Adler Schnee: A Passion for Color and Design
WHERE: Kibel Gallery, University of Maryland, Architecture Building 145, College Park
WHEN: 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Friday and by appointment; through Jan. 15 (closed from Dec. 21 through Jan. 2)
ADMISSION: Free
PHONE: 301/405-8000
WEB SITE: www.arch.umd.edu/kibelgallery
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