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Object Timeline
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1915 |
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1925 |
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2021 |
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2023 |
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2025 |
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Loom, Forsythe Loom Owned by Dorothy Liebes
This is a Loom. It was designed by Nina Beckwith Forsythe and made for Dorothy Wright Liebes and patented by Nina Beckwith Forsythe.
This object is not part of the Cooper Hewitt's permanent collection. It was able to spend time at the museum on loan from New York Historical Society as part of A Dark, A Light, A Bright: The Designs of Dorothy Liebes.
This petite loom was the first that Liebes bought for herself, and she kept it throughout her life for the sample weaving that was such a critical part of her design practice. It was made by Nina Beckwith Forsythe, a Bay Area craftswoman who was director of Oakland, California’s School of Textiles and Handicrafts. Liebes had the loom shipped to New York City when she attended Columbia Teachers College in 1926 and used it to weave the baby blankets that were her first commercial textile venture—she sold them through Saks Fifth Avenue. In her unpublished memoir, she credits retrieving the loom from the Brooklyn wharf with providing her first view of New York City’s skyline, where she later made her home.
It is credited New York Historical Society, American Textile History Museum Collection, Gift of Douglas Todd.
Its dimensions are
H x W x D: 152.4 × 91.4 × 106.7 cm (60 × 36 × 42 in.)
This object was previously on display as a part of the exhibition A Dark, A Light, A Bright: The Designs of Dorothy Liebes.
