Hailed as the “mother of modern weaving,” Dorothy Wright Liebes was born in 1899 in Santa Rosa, California, and the eldest of four children. Liebes attended San Jose State Teachers College, graduating with her BS in 1919. She took weaving classes at Hull House in Chicago, and she used those skills to finance her education at the University of California, Berkeley. Graduating with her BA in 1923, Liebes went on to get her MA at Columbia University in 1929. The summer after graduation, she studied weaving and textile design at the Rodier Studio in Paris. Upon her return to California in 1930, Liebes decided to open her own studio in San Francisco, where she specialized in hand weaving for designers and architects. She eventually moved her studio to New York. In the late 1940s and early '50s, Liebes’ focus changed from custom weaving to working with industry and mass production. Liebes was known primarily for her use of brilliant colors and unusual materials, and her work was regularly in exhibitions at the Museum of Modern Art. She received the American Craft Council Gold Medal in 1970. Liebes died in 1972.