Textile panel

Maria Kipp (1900-1988), one of America's foremost textile designers, produced hand-woven fabrics for drapery and uphostery during the mid-twentieth century. This textile panel and thirty-four others in the Dallas Museum of Art's collection comprise the finest example of her work from all periods of her production. Born in 1900 in the German village of Weihsenbrunn, Kipp studied at the Kunst-Gewerbe School in Munich where she studied design and color. Later she was the first woman to attend the Staatliche Hohere Fachschule für Textilindustrie in Münchberg, Bavaria, to learn the technical structure and engineering of weaving. In 1924, Kipp immigrated to the United States, and her career began with the purchase of two German handlooms which she operated in her garage in Los Angeles.

Kipp's first major commission came in the late 1930s when she wove all the curtains for the new Los Angeles City Hall and the San Francisco Stock Exchange. She worked with the best architects and interior designers of her time such as Rudolf Schindler, Paul Williams, Herman Sachs, and Richard Neutra. These top professionals were drawn to Kipp's hand-woven fabrics because of their superb quality and craftsmanship and her ability to produce custom colors for drapery and uphostery. Although she continued to vary color and fibers throughout her career, Kipp's designs always reflected the Bauhaus tradition of geometric abstraction and linear form.