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Ruth Adler Schnee
Ruth Adler Schnee (née Adler; May 13, 1923 – January 5, 2023) was a German-born American textile designer and interior designer based in Michigan. Schnee was best known for her modern prints and abstract-patterns of organic and geometric forms. She opened the Ruth Adler-Schnee Design Studio with her spouse Edward Schnee in Detroit, which operated until 1960. The studio produced textiles and later branched off into Adler-Schnee Associates home decor, interiors, and furniture.
Ruth Adler was born on May 13, 1923, in Frankfurt, Weimar Republic Germany, to the German Jewish family of Marie and Joseph Adler. The family later moved to Düsseldorf. In 1937, when she was 14, she went to the Degenerate Art Exhibition, This exhibit was designed by the Nazis to be a criticism of modern art, but it inspired Adler Schnee, particularly the vivid colors of Wassily Kandinsky's paintings. She and her family fled Germany shortly after Kristallnacht in 1938 and before the start of World War II.
They moved to Detroit, where Adler Schnee graduated from Cass Technical High School in 1942. In 1944, she studied under Walter Gropius at Harvard University, after receiving a fellowship to the Harvard University Graduate School of Architecture and Design. In 1945, she received a bachelor of fine arts degree from Rhode Island School of Design. Adler Schnee interned with Raymond Loewy in New York City and she received a master of fine arts degree from Cranbrook Academy of Art in 1946, becoming one of the first woman to graduate from the school. She also won a Chicago Tribune residential design competition in 1946. She studied architecture with Eliel Saarinen at Cranbrook and it was here she became interested in textile design.
In 1948, she married Edward Schnee, a Yale University graduate in economics and he helped her grow her business. Together they opened the Adler Schnee home store in Detroit.
In 1952, Adler Schnee worked with Buckminster Fuller on the Ford Rotunda by contributing drapery. Her work was also included in the General Motors Technical Center designed by Eero Saarinen and Minoru Yamasaki's World Trade Center (1973–2001) in New York.
Adler Schnee was the subject of a 2010 documentary, The Radiant Sun: Designer Ruth Adler Schnee directed by Terri Sarris of the University of Michigan.
Adler Schnee was awarded The Kresge Foundation's 2015 Kresge Eminent Artist Award for lifetime achievement in her introduction of post-war modernism to the Detroit area.
Adler Schnee died on January 5, 2023, at the age of 99.
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Ruth Adler Schnee
Ruth Adler Schnee (née Adler; May 13, 1923 – January 5, 2023) was a German-born American textile designer and interior designer based in Michigan. Schnee was best known for her modern prints and abstract-patterns of organic and geometric forms. She opened the Ruth Adler-Schnee Design Studio with her spouse Edward Schnee in Detroit, which operated until 1960. The studio produced textiles and later branched off into Adler-Schnee Associates home decor, interiors, and furniture.
Ruth Adler was born on May 13, 1923, in Frankfurt, Weimar Republic Germany, to the German Jewish family of Marie and Joseph Adler. The family later moved to Düsseldorf. In 1937, when she was 14, she went to the Degenerate Art Exhibition, This exhibit was designed by the Nazis to be a criticism of modern art, but it inspired Adler Schnee, particularly the vivid colors of Wassily Kandinsky's paintings. She and her family fled Germany shortly after Kristallnacht in 1938 and before the start of World War II.
They moved to Detroit, where Adler Schnee graduated from Cass Technical High School in 1942. In 1944, she studied under Walter Gropius at Harvard University, after receiving a fellowship to the Harvard University Graduate School of Architecture and Design. In 1945, she received a bachelor of fine arts degree from Rhode Island School of Design. Adler Schnee interned with Raymond Loewy in New York City and she received a master of fine arts degree from Cranbrook Academy of Art in 1946, becoming one of the first woman to graduate from the school. She also won a Chicago Tribune residential design competition in 1946. She studied architecture with Eliel Saarinen at Cranbrook and it was here she became interested in textile design.
In 1948, she married Edward Schnee, a Yale University graduate in economics and he helped her grow her business. Together they opened the Adler Schnee home store in Detroit.
In 1952, Adler Schnee worked with Buckminster Fuller on the Ford Rotunda by contributing drapery. Her work was also included in the General Motors Technical Center designed by Eero Saarinen and Minoru Yamasaki's World Trade Center (1973–2001) in New York.
Adler Schnee was the subject of a 2010 documentary, The Radiant Sun: Designer Ruth Adler Schnee directed by Terri Sarris of the University of Michigan.
Adler Schnee was awarded The Kresge Foundation's 2015 Kresge Eminent Artist Award for lifetime achievement in her introduction of post-war modernism to the Detroit area.
Adler Schnee died on January 5, 2023, at the age of 99.