Who was Dorothy Liebes?

Growing up in Sonoma County, Dorothy Wright was never idle, even in her youth. Her mother called her “the makingest child.” She painted flower pots to sell on the street corner for 75 cents and recreated the gardens at Versailles in her side yard employing her siblings as laborers. She paid them with her allowance. This quote is from Liebes’s unpublished autobiography, part of her 40,000-page archive in the Smithsonian’s Archives of American Art - all digitized! 

Brother Bill, Dorothy, and sister Tid

Wright spent her twenties at San Jose Normal, U. C. Berkeley and Columbia University. More can be learned about her college years from her Berkeley Historical Society's e-plaque. She was settled in New York, selling pram robes to Saks Fifth Avenue until 1928, when she married Leon Liebes, President of San Francisco’s H. Liebes & Co. Dorothy attempted to settle into San Francisco society as the “wife of a big retail store owner,” but did not succeed. The marriage officially lasted 18 years, but the couple lived separately for the last dozen. 

In 1937, after establishing her studio in San Francisco and securing several high profile commissions, Liebes was named Director of the Decorative Arts Pavilion at the 1939 Golden Gate International Exposition. In the course of accumulating the pieces for the show, Liebes raced through nine European countries in six weeks. 

About that journey, she wrote, “I . . .  lost my prettiest hand loomed scarf to Pablo Picasso who simply appropriated it in Paris.” At a luncheon in Paris she said, “dark eyes constantly darted around the room and they lit upon the scarf I was wearing, fashioned from my own hand-loomed material. He stepped in front of me, reached upward (he was much shorter than I), and without so much as a by-your-leave , took the scarf from around my neck and stuffed it in his pocket.” 

The unpublished autobiography is full of this type of anecdote.

The Golden Gate International Exposition launched Dorothy into the national and international spotlight and conversation around textiles and design.

And then came World War II. Following the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, Liebes was sickened by the United States’s internment of Japanese American citizens. Simultaneously, she was worried about the effect the war would have on her business, concerned that textiles would be considered a frivolity in these dire days. They weren’t, but she was called to a higher duty, one which occupied all of her time for the next three years.

In her role as Art Director of the Red Cross’s Arts & Skills program during and after World War II, she happily worked on behalf of returning vets, believing strongly in the therapeutic value of art. Liebes traveled constantly on behalf of Arts and Skills, even returning to her native Santa Rosa to appeal for support. She visited Letterman in San Francisco, Mare Island in Vallejo, Fitzsimmons General in Denver, Great Lakes in Chicago, Massachusetts General in Boston, Halloran in New York and St. Elizabeth’s in Washington. Over 120 hospitals across the country had Arts & Skills programs.

She wrote: “I particularly enjoyed seeing the men working in the sunshine in a craft shop on the roof of an old hospital on the corner of Van Ness and Pacific Avenue in San Francisco.”My whole theory of making anything is that while the therapeutic angle may be the theme song, it might just as well be something useful and beautiful instead of a bad design which would in the end perhaps produce disappointment and frustration.”

Useful and beautiful themselves, Liebes’s handwoven designs softened the hard edges of the ultra utilitarian International Style of architecture in the 1930s and 40s. Her textiles were not “mere yardage, but an intentional and thoughtful contribution to a space” according to Cooper Hewitt design museum which hosted an exhibit of her work in 2023. She was a favorite of Frank Lloyd Wright, who found in Liebes a kindred romantic spirit. He selected her textiles for several of his projects. On a recent visit to Taliesin West, I was able to see several samples of Liebes’s work for Wright. They illustrated hallmarks of Liebes’s style: her use of unusual materials, chunky yarns, shiny threads, light-filtering but not blocking, and color, color, color.

In the later 1940s, 50s and 60s, Liebes enjoyed widespread publicity resulting in “Dorothy Liebes” becoming a household name. She was the subject of exhibits across America, was in magazines and on television, and received scores of awards. Fashion designers made garments out of her yardage and Hollywood even came calling. Several Liebes textiles can be seen in movies from that era.

Never threatened by the talents of others, Liebes mentored scores of designers, weavers, and other artists in her studios, and championed diversity, equity and inclusion almost a century before the acronym came into everyday use. Liebes’s studios were known for being wonderful places to work, with something always being celebrated. But the parties like this one at the San Francisco studio came to an end when Liebes closed up shop on the west coast and relocated to New York after she married Pulitzer-prize winning journalist Relman (Pat) Morin in 1948. 

Liebes did not have children of her own - something she called the greatest disappointment of her life - but she was an aunt for the ages. These are three of her nieces and nephews. The little girl in her arms, Toni Wright, is her brother Bill’s only child, and one of my most treasured sources. She lives in Rohnert Park and we speak regularly. There are other great-nieces and -nephews who are also very generous with their time and memories.

Useful and Beautiful: The Life of Dorothy Wright Liebes tells the story of how the daughter of a farmer and teacher from rural California became the First Lady of the Loom. In writing this first-ever biography of Liebes, I will retrace her steps through Sonoma County, Chicago, New York, Oklahoma, Latin America, and Europe.