Kresge Foundation honors Ruth Adler Schnee as Eminent Artist

SOUTHFIELD, Mich. (AP) - The Kresge Foundation has named pioneering textile designer Ruth Adler Schnee as winner of its Eminent Artist award for 2015.

Foundation chief executive Rip Rapson says that the 91-year-old Southfield resident "has been a pioneer not only in defining the modern look of architectural interiors, but also in redefining postwar America's sense of public space."

The prize includes a $50,000 award.

Schnee's family escaped Nazi persecution in Germany and settled in Detroit when she was a teenager. She earned a graduate degree in architecture from the Cranbrook Academy of Art.

Schnee applied modernist abstraction to fabric and textiles. She and her husband launched the store Adler-Schnee in 1948, introducing generations of Detroiters to modernist home furnishings.

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Online:

Details of award: http://bit.ly/1Esnkw7http://bit.ly/15LKBu6

Art samples: http://bit.ly/15WMELL