“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 will occupy the ground floor space of Palazzo Mocenigo and will consist of original hand-printed fabrics as well as woven textiles paired with sketches and quotes from the artist. The work is complemented by a documentary film, 'The Radiant Sun: Designer Ruth Adler Schnee' (directed by filmmaker Terri Sarris, produced by Sarris and Eisenbach) and a glass mosaic screen, designed by Ruth Adler Schnee in collaboration with Angelo Orsoni Furnace in Venice (Cannaregio 1045, Venice), famous for its library of colored glass, a passion shared by the Orsonis and Schnee. A screening of the full-length documentary film will take place at the Jewish Museum at 6pm on Sunday May, 5th. 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.