Ruth Adler Schnee (1923-2023)

 R.I.P. to the first female pioneer in mid-century textile and interior design. 

As a teenager, she risked imprisonment to sneak into Munich's infamous Degenerate Art Exhibition of 1937, organized by the Nazi party to showcase what they perceived as the era's decay. Wearing a large brown fur hat as a disguise, Adler Schnee was immediately transported by the brilliant color of artists such as Oskar Kokoschka, George Grosz, and Wassily Kandinsky.

After obtaining a scholarship to RISD for interior architecture (the first Jewish woman to do so) in 1946 she began to make a name for herself through her trademark exaltation of bright color and minimal, organic shapes. 

"A design must not only speak, it must sing," she has said.

Schnee sold her work to leading designers but also sought beyond mere distribution of her work and actively worked to teach the public about the beauty and practical elegance of everyday objects. 

"Can't a cooking spoon have a beautiful shape?" Adler Schnee asked, recalling in the Smithsonian's oral history the script for one of the store's radio spots. "The sweeping broom can be a bright, cheerful color and feel good to the hand." 

Her vivid handicraft is still recognized today for its bold ability to sing joy and the excellence of everyday material in her whimsical approach to a classic mid-century art form.