Artist Harry Soviak (American, 1935–1984) moved to New York City in 1959, after completing both his bachelor’s and his master’s degree in painting at Cranbrook Academy in Michigan. He joined a growing group of Cranbrook alumni at the Dorothy Liebes Studio. Under his painting professors at Cranbrook, Soviak developed his innate sense of color, an ability that no doubt attracted Liebes to his work. [1] 

By the late 1950s, the Liebes studio was closed to the custom handwoven commissions that had made its owner famous and was focused instead on corporate partnerships, most notably providing carpet and area rug designs to Bigelow-Sanford for a line that was produced as Dorothy Liebes for Bigelow. According to textile artist and designer Glen Kaufman (1932–2000), another Cranbrook graduate who started working at the Liebes studio shortly after Soviak arrived, he and Soviak worked primarily on developing design prototypes for Bigelow; Kaufman explained, “We did a lot of exploratory work in terms of rugs and carpet design, Harry and I.” Unlike woven samples produced on the loom, the rug design prototypes were created using a tufting gun, a technique that allowed for a more immediate, freeform approach that likely suited Soviak’s training and talents as a painter. [2] 

When not busy designing carpets, the two men “would try and out-Dorothy Dorothy Liebes” with audacious color palettes and exuberant amounts of Lurex metallic yarns in their designs, especially with the woven pillows that were used by so many interior designers and art directors from the mid 1940s through the 1960s. [3] 

Soviak left the Liebes studio to work for textile designer Jack Lenor Larsen in 1961. Through his association with Larsen, he also began teaching at the Philadelphia College of Art, where he taught textile design until 1971, after which he moved to the painting department. Across his career, he continued to make art, working in collage, watercolor, and pen-and-ink drawing. His artwork is in the collections of several museums in the United States, including the Smithsonian American Art Museum, and has been exhibited at numerous museums across the country, including at the Museum of Modern Art in 1966 in an exhibition titled Art in the Mirror. 

Soviak continued to teach at the Philadelphia College of Art until his death of AIDS-related complications in 1984 at the age of 59. Though he designed for the Dorothy Liebes Studio for only a short time, Harry Soviak is part of a large and talented cohort of LGBTQ+ studio members that includes Dorr Bothwell, Tammis Keefe, Ralph Higbee, and Daren Pierce. 

NOTES

[1] For a full biography of Soviak, see his entry on the Visual Aids website, which is dedicated to celebrating the work of the many artists who died of HIV/AIDS: https://visualaids.org/artists/harry-soviak. 

[2] Oral history interview with Glen Kaufman, January 22–February 23, 2008. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC, https://www.aaa.si.edu/collections/interviews/oral-history-interview-glen-kaufman-16155.