A Dark, a Light, a Bright: The Designs of Dorothy Liebes, Susan Brown and Alexa Griffith Winton

A Dark, A Light, A Bright brings Dorothy Liebes—her riotous palette, textural bravado, and pioneering spirit—into sharp, celebratory focus. This lushly designed volume, born from a major Cooper Hewitt exhibition and co‑published with Yale University Press, restores Liebes to her rightful place as “the mother of the twentieth‑century palette.” Deep archival essays (by Susan Brown, Alexa Griffith Winton, and others) trace how her so‑called “Liebes Look”—a daring palette of neon shades, lavish textures, and metallic glints—revolutionized American modernism, from skyscraper lounges and yacht interiors to mass‑market fabrics and haute couture garments.

More than a catalogue, the book is a tactile experience in itself: a cloth case with silkscreened type, inset photo, visible threads, and exposed spine echo Liebes’s craft ethic. Overflowing with full‑color detail shots, studio photographs, and close‑ups of her hand‑woven samples, it paints a portrait of a woman who injected warmth and humanity into steel‑and‑glass modernism. Essays reveal her collaborations with architects like Frank Lloyd Wright, her studio experiments with synthetic fibers, and the boldness that made critics hail her as “the greatest weaver alive today”.

Our thoughts on this book: read here

About the Author
Susan Brown, Associate Curator and Acting Head of Textiles at Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum, brings deep institutional expertise, guiding the scholarly rediscovery of Liebes’s legacy through rigorous exhibition curation and archival storytelling.

Alexa Griffith Winton, Manager of Content & Interpretation at Cooper Hewitt and a design historian, contributes richly textured analysis drawn from years of scholarship on Liebes, underpinning the book’s blending of material culture and mid‑century design narrative.

Publication date: 2023
Publisher: Yale University Press
Pages: 256
ISBN: 9780300266153