Episode 109: Ruth Adler Schnee
Ruth Adler was born on May 13, 1923 in Frankfurt, Germany. Her family moved to Dusseldorf when she was four. Her parents became friends with artists like Paul Klee and Paul Signac which inspired Ruth’s love of art. The Adler family was Jewish and when Hitler came to power in 1933, things really changed. By 1936 Ruth was not allowed to attend school anymore, and on Kristallnacht, their apartment was ransacked. Ruth’s father was arrested a few days later and sent to Dachau near Munich. Her mother worked on a plan for them to leave Germany, getting them exit visas and coordinating a place for them to land in the US. She also lobbied for her husband to be released from the concentration camp. Luckily, her father was released on the condition that they leave the country in 1939 and the family left for the US. They settled in Detroit, Michigan so that Ruth and her brother could attend Cass Technical High School, a great art school. Ruth graduated from Cass in 1942 and received a full ride scholarship to Rhode Island School of Design, RISD. She studied interior architecture and graduated in 1945. After graduating she worked over the summer in Raymond Loewy’s office with Minoru Yamasaki and Warren Platner before being accepted at Cranbrook Academy in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan. There she got a Masters in Fine Art in 1946. She also entered a design competition for the Chicago Tribune and won. The design featured custom draperies that she designed for the oversized windows. An architecture firm saw this and asked her to make the draperies for them for auto showrooms. They funded her to start a screenprinting shop so she could start manufacturing these draperies. She found a space on 12th Street in Detroit and hired someone to build a 30 foot table and the screens for her fabrics. Thus Ruth’s textile business was formed. Ruth met and married Edward Schnee in 1948. He moved to Detroit and their shop Adler Schnee flourished. They became the go to spot in Detroit for modern furnishings and textiles. Ruth was the designer coming up with textile designs and taking on any interior design commissions that came in, while Eddie named the textile designs and ran the business. Ruth went on to design the interiors of many big projects such as the Ford Rotunda with Buckminster Fuller, the General Motors Technical Center with Eero Saarinen, the Affleck House by Frank Lloyd Wright, and the lobby of the World Trade Center with Minoru Yamasaki. Unfortunately the Detroit riots stopped people from wanting to shop downtown and in 1976, Ruth and Eddie had to close their storefront. In the 90s, there was a resurgence of interest in Adler Schnee’s designs and Anzea Textiles started reproducing them. In 2015, Ruth signed a 20 year contract with Knoll Textiles to create new designs for them at the age of 92. In 2015 she received the Kresge Eminent Artist Award. Eddie passed away in 2000, but Ruth kept on designing until her death on January 5, 2023 at the age of 99.
Caryatid: Eva Sonaike
Eva is a German-born Nigerian designer. She now lives in London and was originally a journalist, but pivoted into interior design and textile design. She founded her own interiors company Eva Sonaike in 2009. The company’s ethos is ‘Bringing Color to Life’. She takes inspiration from growing up in Germany, and the european mid-century influences along with her home country of Nigeria and different African textiles and colors to create her textile designs. Each collection she creates has a narrative. She said in 2023 ‘Kano, my most recent collection is named after a city in northern Nigeria in Kano State, formerly a trans-Saharan trade route, which is a city of kings and queens. I envisaged a story – using textiles. I always start with the colors, which take a long time because I want them to translate the story accurately. Then I design and create the overall package.’
References
Adler Schnee, Ruth: “Oral History Interview with Ruth Adler Schnee” by Anita Schnee. Smithsonian Archives of American Art, 24-30 November 2002, https://www.aaa.si.edu/download_pdf_transcript/ajax?record_id=edanmdm-AAADCD_oh_238676
Coe, Amanda, and Amanda Coe. “Cranbrook Mourns the Passing of Ruth Adler Schnee | Cranbrook Academy of Art.” Cranbrook Academy of Art, 6 Jan. 2023, cranbrookart.edu/2023/01/06/cranbrook-mourns-the-passing-of-ruth-adler-schnee.
“Find Out More About Our Journey | Eva Sonaike.” Eva Sonaike, evasonaike.com/pages/about-eva-sonaike.
Green, Penelope. “Ruth Adler Schnee, 99, Exuberant Designer of Modernist Textiles, Dies.” The New York Times, 15 Jan. 2023, www.nytimes.com/2023/01/15/arts/design/ruth-adler-schnee-dead.html.
Jennifer Mulson and Jennifer Mulson. “Modern Design Pioneer Ruth Adler Schnee Reflects on Life, Career.” Colorado Springs Gazette, 5 July 2019, gazette.com/ae/modern-design-pioneer-ruth-adler-schnee-reflects-on-life-career/article_78b1caf0-9468-11e9-939d-db909cfcdd4b.html.
Judith Harris Solomon, The Detroit News. “Iconic Textile Designer Ruth Adler Schnee Going Strong.” DetroitNews-Unknown, 22 Sept. 2017, www.detroitnews.com/story/life/home-garden/2017/09/21/ruth-adler-schnee-textiles/105862424.
Knoll. www.knoll.com/knollnewsdetail/in-conversation-ruth-adler-schnee-2.
Prempeh, Charlene, and Yasmin Jones-Henry. “The Africa Connection: Five Names Leading the Design Diaspora.” Financial Times, 13 Apr. 2023, www.ft.com/content/d2fca012-bdeb-4cb0-8894-b10f46314a19.
Rapson, Rip, et al. Ruth Adler Schnee | 2015 Kresge Eminent Artist. Illustrated by Victoria and Albert Museum and Cranbrook Archives, kresge.org/sites/default/files/2015-Eminent-Artist-Schnee.pdf.
Wikipedia contributors. “Ruth Adler Schnee.” Wikipedia, 12 June 2024, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruth_Adler_Schnee.
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