Ruth Adler Schnee was born in Frankfurt, Germany in 1923 to Joseph and Marie Adler. Her family later moved to Dusseldorf, where they were neighbors to Paul Klee, an admitted influence on her work. Her mother, Marie Adler, studied at the famed Bauhaus, bringing that perspective to Schnee’s early education. As an artist, she was further inspired by the art she saw at Hitler’s Entartete Kunst (degenerate art) exhibition in 1937, in particular the colorful work of Kandinsky, perhaps the only positive to come out of that horrific period. During the increasingly brutal attacks and restrictions of the Nazi regime, the Adlers fled the country. Schnee came to Detroit with her family in 1939, attended Hutchins Intermediate School, and graduated from Cass Technical High School in January 1942. Winning a four-year scholarship to the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD), she graduated in 1945. A brief career as assistant designer in the New York firm of Raymond Loewy (the result of winning a Condé Nast Prix de Paris award), ended when she attained a fellowship to the Cranbrook Academy of Art. It was while working at Raymond Loewy that she first met Minoru Yamasaki, who became a lifelong friend and associate. At Cranbrook she studied with Eliel Saarinen and experienced the intellectual challenges that she thrived on. Later, she met and became friends with such Cranbrook notables as Ray and Charles Eames, and Louis Redstone. Upon graduating in 1946, she entered a Chicago Tribune “Design for Better Living” competition, earning a prize and the recognition which started her on a career of fabric design. In 1948, shortly after establishing her fabric design and silk-screening business in Detroit, she met and married Edward Schnee, a 1941 Yale graduate from Connecticut. He immediately became part of her creative life, making the silk screen prints that Schnee designed. His degree in economics would prove invaluable to their future endeavors. Ruth Adler Schnee began winning prizes and recognition for her fabric designs almost immediately. Early awards include: the 1948 American Institute of Designers (A.I.D.) first award in printed fabrics for her design “Strata”; prizes, awards and honorable mentions in many of the Detroit Institute of Arts (DIA) Michigan Artist-Craftsmen exhibitions, from 1949 and into the fifties; recognition in the International Textile Exhibitions at the University of North Carolina; and selection in the Young Designers competition at the Akron Art Institute in 1954. Along with Schnee’s work in fabric design and interior space design, the couple owned and operated a design and retail establishment in Detroit, bringing mid-century modern décor and furnishings to the area. A carriage house behind the silk screen printing business on 12th St., in Detroit, was converted to a retail establishment, displaying some of the iconic designs first shown at the DIA’s artist and craftsmen exhibitions. The store moved to two other locations before settling in the historic Hemmeter building in downtown Detroit. With their landmark store Adler/Schnee, on Harmonie Park, they initiated and were influential in many of Detroit’s downtown activities. Their retail establishment was an early proponent of Michigan artists, providing a gallery for exhibitions, as well as presenting unique arts and crafts items from around the world, for which they traveled extensively. Edward Schnee was noted for his interest in, and promotion of, cooking utensils and gadgets, cooking-related events to promote them, and his ability to procure unusual items requested by customers.

The Schnees sold the store, building and name, in 1977. Following the sale, they continued their business as interior design and space consultants, under the name Schnee & Schnee, Ruth creating fabric designs and designing interior spaces, and Edward managing the business side of the company. (Eddie, as he was known, also gets credit for naming many of Schnee’s textile designs.) In 1992 Schnee signed a contract with ICF/Unika Vaev to have reproductions of her early fabrics reissued. While continuing to work with ICF, she began to work with Anzea in 1993, creating new designs and adapting her original silk-screen designs for woven textiles. The relationship continues to this day and Schnee’s textiles can be found in the Anzea catalog. Schnee has exhibited extensively over the years throughout the country. Principle exhibitions include: participation in the Detroit Institute of Arts Michigan Artists & Craftsmen Exhibitions; “From Postwar to Postmodern: Interior Textiles, 1946-1976” at the Hadley-Whitney Museum in Lexington, Kentucky; “What Modern Was, Design 1935-1965” at the Museum of Decorative Arts in Montreal; and “A Woman’s Hand, 1945-1969, Designing Textiles in America,” at the Museum of the Fashion Institute of America.” In 1995 her alma mater, the Rhode Island School of Design, hosted a major retrospective, and in 2002 the Detroit Jewish Community Center recognized Schnee as “A Detroit Treasure.” In 2011, Schnee presented “A Textile Experience, a Passion for Color” at the Palazzo Mocenigo in Venice, Italy. In addition to a constant and continuing stream of residential design work, Schnee has had major commissions for interior space designs. They include working with Buckminster Fuller on the Ford Rotunda, and in Detroit, with Louis Redstone on Hannan House, and work for the Krolick School and the Johnson Recreation Center. She supplied retail items and design ideas for Eero Saarinen’s GM Tech Center. Schnee is fond of recounting that her design of a beautiful, draped Thaibok silk ceiling in the Tech Center’s executive dining room was firmly rejected by design executive Harley Earl in favor of something more masculine. She worked with her good friend Yamasaki designing some of the interiors for the World Trade Center. In 1983, Schnee & Schnee was awarded the design contract for the Jewish Community Center’s Edward and Freda Fleischman Residence and Louis and Edith Blumberg Plaza, over such competition as Albert Kahn Associates. It was a three-year project that involved learning how to adapt living space for senior citizens and the design of a Jewish chapel. The firm subsequently did work for a similar senior residence project in Minneapolis called Sholom Home. Edward Schnee died in Sept. 1, 2000 in Southfield, Michigan. Ruth lives in Southfield and Longboat Key, Florida, and continues to lecture, present exhibits and design interiors.