Object Details
- Collection Creator
- Liebes, Dorothy
- See more items in
- Dorothy Liebes papers
- Dorothy Liebes papers / Series 2: Correspondence
- Sponsor
- Funding for the processing of the Dorothy Liebes papers was provided by the Terra Foundation for American Art. Funding for the digitization of the collection was provided by the Coby Foundation.
- Date
- 1937-1973
- Archival Repository
- Archives of American Art
- Identifier
- AAA.liebdoro, Subseries 2.2
- Type
- Archival materials
- Collection Citation
- Dorothy Liebes papers, circa 1850-1973, bulk 1922-1970. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
- Collection Rights
- The Archives of American Art makes its archival collections available for non-commercial, educational and personal use unless restricted by copyright and/or donor restrictions, including but not limited to access and publication restrictions. AAA makes no representations concerning such rights and restrictions and it is the user's responsibility to determine whether rights or restrictions exist and to obtain any necessary permission to access, use, reproduce and publish the collections. Please refer to the Smithsonian's Terms of Use for additional information.
- Scope and Contents
- General correspondence is with friends, colleagues, and business associates, some of whom may be further represented in the heavily industry-focused Series 5: Subject Files. The number of influential individuals represented here is indicative of Liebes's influence and connections in the intersecting worlds of mid-century American textile art, architecture, and design. Included is correspondence with artists such as Ivan Bartlett, Dorr Bothwell, Lorraine Miller, and Beatrice Wood; textile designer Jack Lenor Larsen; interior designers and decorators including Eleanor LeMaire, William Pahlmann, and Daren Pierce, who Liebes hired as a textile designer in 1949, and David T. Williams who worked with Liebes on contracts for Hilton Hotels. Also found is correspondence with industrial designer Henry Dreyfuss and architects William Wurster and Frank Lloyd Wright. Liebes's relationship with Wright and Olgivanna Lloyd Wright, is further documented in Liebes's writings and photographs. Liebes's correspondence with Swedish textile designer Astrid Sampe, and Gira Sarabhai who, with her brother Gautam, established India's Calico Museum of Textiles in 1949, is evidence of Liebes's interest in international cultural traditions in weaving and textile design, further documented in Series 5. There is scattered correspondence with companies such as Quaker Lace Company who hired Liebes as a consultant in the 1950s, Sears, Roebuck and Co., for whom Liebes worked as an art consultant and colorist beginning in 1969, and Stroheim & Romann who contracted Liebes to deliver the "Dorothy Liebes look" in their upholstery fabrics in 1962. Files for Parsons School of Design document Liebes's service on the school's board of directors. Liebes also established a lecture series at the school, in memory of Mary L. Brandt, which is documented in Series 5: Subject Files. Correspondence with Doubleday & Company, Inc., relates to Liebes's unpublished book on weaving. Liebes was still working on ideas for the book as late as 1971 but died before it could be completed. Correspondence with lawyer Harold Riegelman documents Liebes's friendship with Riegelman and also some of the legal affairs Riegelman and his company handled for her. Files on Leon Liebes document Liebes's personal and business relationship with her first husband, who donated space for Liebes to establish a studio in his successful retail store in San Francisco, prior to their divorce in 1940. At the end of the series is a folder Liebes titled "Interesting Personal Letters." These include three illustrated letters from Rene d'Harnoncourt, who Liebes traveled with on her Indian Field Service trips to Oklahoma in the 1940s, and one letter from Roi Partridge written as his wife was dying.
- Collection Restrictions
- This collection is open for research. Access to original papers requires an appointment and is limited to the Archives' Washington, D.C. Research Center. Researchers interested in accessing audiovisual recordings in this collection must use access copies. Contact References Services for more information.
- Record ID
- ebl-1629142210597-1629142210875-0
