Henriette Reiss was born on May 5, 1889 in Liverpool,
England, second of the three children of Hans Bernhard Lüthy
and his wife, Carey (Caroline-Françoise, née
Guérin). Hans Lüthy was a successful Swiss corn
broker and a patron of the arts. When Henriette was eleven,
the family moved back to Switzerland and settled in Vevey.
Henriette was fluent in English, French, and German. She studied
painting, sculpture, and design in Munich, as well as in Basel
and Liverpool. In 1912 she married Winold Reiss, a painter
and fellow student at the Kunstgewerbeschule in Munich. In
1913 they decided to emigrate to the United States. The marriage
ended in divorce in 1923, and Henriette Reiss embarked on
her own career in New York City. She established herself as
a designer, employing several people in her studio, and became
well known for her pioneering, modern textile and rug designs
as well as for her book jackets and advertising layouts.
She developed her own method for teaching, the
Henriette Reiss Method of Rhythmic Design, and gave courses
at numerous institutions; for seven years she conducted special
Rhythmic Design classes for teachers, under the auspices of
the New York City Board of Education. In 1938 she went back
to Europe and stayed for three years, traveling and painting
mostly in France and Switzerland. Henriette became a naturalized
American citizen and lived in New York City for much of her
life; from the late 1940s on, she spent most summers at her
house in Woodstock, New York. In 1964, when she was 75, she
retired from teaching at FIT (Fashion Institute of Technology,
New York City). She died on July 17, 1992, at the age of 103.
Henriette Reiss had received training in singing
in her younger years, and her rhythmic design method was connected
to her deep interest in music (and in poetry, which she wrote
seriously as well). She expressed this profound love for and
understanding of music in many of her paintings and designs.
The interpenetration of the two arts, of music and painting,
are an important theme in her life's work. She was also gifted
as a teacher, and keenly interested in the social and political
events of her time. From the 1920s into the 1960s, she exhibited
in many museums, institutions, and galleries in the U.S.,
France, and Switzerland, often signing her paintings "Henri".
Education
Painting, Sculpture, Design: Kunstgewerbeschule, Basel, Switzerland;
Kunstgewerbeschule, Munich, Germany; Liverpool School of Fine
and Applied Art, Liverpool, England; Heyman Academy, Munich,
Germany; private study with Georg Schildknecht, Munich, Germany.
Commissions, Clients
and Professional Activites
Textiles: Mosse; Haas Brothers
Fabrics Corp.; Goldstein Wilkens & Co.; Finsilver Fabrics
Corp.; Clarence Whitman & Sons; Schwarzenbach, Huber &
Co.; Pacific Mills; Onondaga Silk Co.; Rockledge Mills; Frank
Satz; RH Mallinson; Rugs:
Bigelow-Sanford Carpet Co.; Book
Jackets: Howard McCann; Doubleday, Page & Co.;
Harcourt, Brace & Co.; E.P. Dutton & Co., Inc.; Putnam;
Cosmopolitan; Scribner's;
Advertising: Cutex Northam Warren
Corp.; Save the Surface Paint & Varnish; Film Bureau; Prince
Matchabelli; Painting, Drawing,
Illustration: oil, tempera, watercolor,
black and white.
Academic Career
She developed and taught over a period of forty years the
Henriette Reiss Method of Rhythmic Design, as well as general
art courses. New York City: Board of Education (special classes
in design for supervisors, elementary and high school teachers
in all five boroughs); Brooklyn College, School of Education;
Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences; The Brooklyn Museum;
The Evening Textile High & Trade School; Fashion Institute
of Technology; Greenwich House; Metropolitan Museum of Art;
Museum of Natural History; New York Evening School of Industrial
Arts; The Phoenix Art Institute; School Art League of New
York; Traphagen School of Fashion; Washington Irving Evening
School; West Side Vocation High School. Providence, Rhode
Island: Board of Education (classes for teachers).
