In conjunction with the 54th Biennale of Art, the Venice Civic Museums Foundation will host two modern textile shows, as part of its temporary exhibition program, at the Palazzo Mocenigo – Study Center for the ‘700-‘900 Textiles and Costume History.

“Ruth Adler Schnee: a Passion for Color”, curated by Ronit Eisenbach and Caterina Frisone, is an exhibition of modern textiles designed by German-American designer, Ruth Adler Schnee, who arrived in Detroit with her family after escaping Nazi Germany. Schnee has devoted her career to the search for and creation of good form, textures and color combinations. Trained in interior architecture at the Rhode Island School of Design and architecture at the Cranbrook Academy of Art under the direction of Eliel Saarinen, Ms. Schnee brings architectural themes to the textile industry. In Detroit, her circle of friends, colleagues, and clients included Charles and Ray Eames, Eero Saarinen, Frank Lloyd Wright, Buckminster Fuller and Minoru Yamasaki. Since 1995, Adler Schnee – now 88 – has been working with Anzea Textiles to create new designs for woven upholstery cloth as well as reissue, translate and mass-produce her brightly colored hand-printed fabric designs from the ’40s and ’50s.

The exhibition is brought to Venice in partnership with the Kibel Gallery at the University of Maryland, School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation, where it was originally developed. This exhibit and film are made possible by the generous support of many individuals and institutions including: The Rhode Island School of Design; The University of Maryland School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation and the CADRE Foundation; The University of Michigan Center for Research and Learning and the Institute for Research on Women and Gender; The Beverly Willis Architecture Foundation; The Broad Art Foundation and the Maxine and Stuart Frankel Foundation.