Pola Stout
{{Short description|American designer (1902–1984)}}
{{Infobox person
| name = Pola Stout
| image = Rex-Pola-Stout-1944.jpg
| imagesize = 240px
| alt =
| caption = Stout with husband Rex Stout, 1944
| birth_name = Josefine Pola Weinbach
| birth_date = {{Birth date|1902|01|08}}
| birth_place = Stryj, Austria-Hungary
| death_date = {{Death date and age|1984|10|12|1902|01|08}}
| death_place = Stamford, Connecticut, U.S.
| nationality =
| other_names = Pola Hoffmann
| occupation = Textile designer
| years_active =
| known_for =
| notable_works =
| spouse = {{plainlist|
- {{marriage|Wolfgang Hoffmann|1925|1932|end=div}}
- {{marriage|Rex Stout|1932|1975|end=d.}}
}}
| children = 2
}}
Josefine Pola Stout (née Weinbach, January 8, 1902 – October 12, 1984) was an American designer best known for creating fine woolen fabrics. Born in Stryi, she studied with Josef Hoffmann at the Kunstgewerbe Schule in Vienna, and designed for the Wiener Werkstätte before she immigrated to the United States in 1925 with her first husband, architect and designer Wolfgang Hoffmann. Wolfgang and Pola Hoffmann became a prominent interior design team that contributed to the development of American modernism in the early 20th century. They dissolved their successful partnership in 1932, when she married popular mystery author Rex Stout. Pola Stout was an influential textile designer after her second marriage. She was executor of Rex Stout's literary estate after her husband's death in 1975.
Biography
Pola Stout was born Josefine Pola Weinbach,"Josefine Hoffmann". Ancestry.com. New York, Passenger Lists, 1820–1957 [database online]. Provo, Utah: Ancestry.com Operations Inc., 2010. Retrieved 2016-03-06."Josephine Pola Stout". Ancestry.com. New York, Passenger Lists, 1820–1957 [database online]. Provo, Utah: Ancestry.com Operations Inc., 2010. Retrieved 2016-03-06. daughter of Schulem and Betty Eliasiewicz (Tune) Weinbach, on January 8, 1902. She was born in Stryj, a city that was then part of Austria-Hungary and was later part of Poland.{{cite book |last=Howes |first=Durward |date=1935 |title=American Women: The Official Who's Who Among the Women of the Nation |url=http://hdl.handle.net/2027/uc1.32106019738548?urlappend=%3Bseq=609 |volume=3 |location=Los Angeles |publisher=Richard Blank Publishing Company |page=535 |hdl=2027/uc1.32106019738548?urlappend=%3Bseq=609 |oclc=1643267}} As a child she befriended dressmakers and used the scraps from their cutting tables to fashion clothing for her dolls, which she displayed in a window facing the street. She was unable to persuade her parents to let her pursue a career in art; instead, she was sent to the University of Lemberg to study philosophy. In addition to her coursework there she worked for a milliner, and saved enough money to run away to Vienna. On the day of her arrival she arranged to study at the Kunstgewerbe Schule (now the University of Applied Arts Vienna) with Josef Hoffmann. To save money for tuition, she slept on a park bench for her first six weeks in the Austrian capital.{{cite news |last=Pope |first=Virginia |title=Blends Color Harmonies Into Fine Garment Fabric |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1940/03/17/archives/blends-color-harmonies-into-fine-garment-fabric-pola-stout-began.html |newspaper=The New York Times |date=17 March 1940 |access-date=2016-03-08 }}{{Rp|551}}
{{multiple image
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| image1 = Little-Carnegie-Auditorium-2.jpg
| alt1 =
| caption1 = Auditorium of the Little Carnegie Playhouse by Wolfgang and Pola Hoffmann, architects (1928)
| image2 = Little-Carnegie-Gallery.jpg
| alt2 =
| caption2 = Art gallery in the Little Carnegie Playhouse (1928)
| image3 = Hoffmann-Ashtrays.jpg
| alt3 =
| caption3 = Light pewter cigarette and ash trays by Wolfgang and Pola Hoffmann (1930)
| image4 = Stout-Family-High-Meadow-Look-1940.jpg
| alt4 =
| caption4 = Stout family at High Meadow (1940)
}}
During her four years of study at the Kunstgewerbe Schule, Pola Weinbach designed textiles for the Wiener Werkstätte and worked for Sigmund Freud, repairing a Gobelin tapestry.{{Rp|551}} She then lived in Paris, working at a fabric house that supplied haute couture, and then moved to Berlin. On December 28, 1925, she married Wolfgang Hoffmann, Josef Hoffmann's son, who was on his way to New York to work as an assistant to architect-designer Joseph Urban. The couple immigrated to the United States, and after nine months with Urban they formed their own independent design partnership with offices on Madison Avenue in Manhattan.{{cite web |url=http://modernism.com/designers-and-manufactures/wolfgang-hoffmann |title=Wolfgang Hoffmann |website=Modernism.com |access-date=2016-03-06}}{{cite journal |date=2001 |title=Shaping the Modern: American Decorative Arts at The Art Institute of Chicago, 1917–65 |journal=Modern Solutions |publisher=Art Institute of Chicago |volume=27 |issue=2 |pages=46–69+108–110 |isbn=9780865591875 |jstor=4102829 }}{{Rp|52}} Their first years in America were difficult; Wolfgang worked in a machine shop, and Pola made lampshades and women's hats.
Commissions began with two art house cinemas in New York—the St. George Playhouse in Brooklyn (1927) and the Little Carnegie Playhouse in Manhattan (1928).{{cite news |last=Read |first=Helen Appleton |date=August 23, 1931 |title=Apostles of Modern Design: Pola and Wolfgang Hoffman Had to Wait 5 Years Before Their Ideals Were Recognized As Enduring |url=https://www.newspapers.com/newspage/59874337/ |newspaper=The Brooklyn Eagle |access-date=2016-03-13 }}{{cite web |url=http://www.builtworksregistry.org/items/show/326497 |title=Little Carnegie Playhouse |website=Built Works Registry |publisher=Artstor |access-date=2016-03-13}} Located only a few steps east of Carnegie Hall, the Little Carnegie was an intimate modernist theater in contrast to the opulent movie palaces then in vogue.{{cite magazine |date=November 17, 1928 |title=Carnegie Playhouse Is Last Word in the Little Theatre |url=https://archive.org/stream/motionpicturenew38moti#page/1543/mode/1up |magazine=Motion Picture News |page=1543|access-date=2016-03-13 }} In addition to the main auditorium, the unique layout included an art gallery, bridge room, ping-pong room and a lounge and dance floor.{{cite magazine |date=November 17, 1928 |title=Regional News from Correspondents, New York and New Jersey |url=https://archive.org/stream/motionpicturenew38moti#page/1540/mode/1up |magazine=Motion Picture News |page=1540|access-date=2016-03-13 }} Demolished in 1982, the venue was prized by sophisticated New Yorkers for its austere silver-and-black interior and its dedication to international film.{{cite news |date=November 8, 1985 |title=Little Carnegie's Screen is Lit Again |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1985/11/08/movies/little-carnegie-s-screen-is-lit-again.html |newspaper=The New York Times |access-date=2016-03-13 }}
Less known today than some of their industrial design colleagues who were more adept at self-promotion,{{Rp|308}} Wolfgang and Pola Hoffmann were among the immigrants who made significant contributions to the development of American modernism and the American Modern design aesthetic in the early 20th century.{{cite book |last1=Wilson |first1=Richard Guy |author-link1=Richard Guy Wilson |last2=Pilgrim |first2=Dianne H. |last3=Tashjian |first3=Dickran |author4-link=Brooklyn Museum |last4=Brooklyn Museum |date=1986 |title=The Machine Age in America 1918–1941 |location=New York |publisher=Harry N. Abrams, Inc. |isbn=0-8109-1421-2 }}{{Rp|88}} In 1928 they were among the 14 architects and designers who founded the American Designers' Gallery—"devoted exclusively to showing objects and interiors for practical use"—and they were among those who established the American Union of Decorative Artists and Craftsmen (AUDAC), the most ambitious professional design group of the era.{{Rp|296}} In 1930, AUDAC exhibited furnishings and decorative arts at the Grand Central Palace in five model rooms, one designed by the Hoffmanns. In 1931 they contributed an office interior to a large and important exhibition by AUDAC members, organized by Wolfgang Hoffmann and Kem Weber at the Brooklyn Museum.{{Rp|88, 296}}
The Hoffmanns often made opportunities to exhibit their work, and created contemporary American furnishings and interiors for shops, restaurants, and private clients including Mrs. Otto C. Sommerich and Helena Rubinstein.{{cite news |last=Storey |first=Walter Rendell |date=May 25, 1930|title=Radio Cabinets in Decorative Schemes |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1930/05/25/archives/radio-cabinets-in-decorative-schemes-they-are-designed-to-serve.html |newspaper=The New York Times |access-date=2016-03-16 }} Pola Hoffmann's interior design commissions included the New York apartment of Charles J. Liebman{{cite news |last=Gray |first=Christopher |author-link=Christopher Gray (architectural historian) |date=April 5, 2012 |title='Upstairs, Downstairs,' Apartment-Style |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/08/realestate/streetscapes-907-fifth-avenue-upstairs-downstairs-apartment-style.html?_r=1 |newspaper=The New York Times |access-date=2016-03-16 }} and the still-extant Weiler Building (1928) at 407 South Warren Street, Syracuse, New York.{{cite news |date=February 1, 1928 |title=Weiler Firm Plans Modern Beauty Parlor |newspaper=Syracuse Herald }}{{cite book |last1=Connors |first1=Dennis J. |last2=Onondaga Historical Association |date=2008 |title=Historic Photos of Syracuse |location=Nashville |publisher=Turner Publishing Company |page=118 |isbn=978-1596524323 }} The Madison Avenue shop of Rena Rosenthal carried their line of accessories—pewter cigarette holders and ashtrays, and desk sets in natural woods and pewter—which was praised by The New Yorker: "These pleasant utilitarian features are totally unadorned; their line and proportion, both of which are a joy to behold, are all they have by way of ornamentation, and it's plenty."{{cite magazine |author= |title=On and Off the Avenue |magazine=The New Yorker|date=January 24, 1931 |pages=48–49 }}{{cite web |url=http://www.sothebys.com/content/sothebys/fr/auctions/ecatalogue/2014/20th-c-design-n09127/lot.112.html |title=Hoffmann Ashtray |date=March 6, 2014 |website=20th Century Design|publisher=Sotheby's |access-date=2016-03-17}}{{cite web |url=https://www.brooklynmuseum.org/opencollection/archives/image/37633 |title=Wolfgang & Pola Hoffman. Light pewter cigarette and ash trays. Executed by the Early American Pewter Company |publisher=Brooklyn Museum |access-date=2016-03-17}}{{cite web |url=http://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/490792 |title=Cigarette and match holder with ashtray (c. 1930) designed by Wolfgang Hoffmann and Pola Hoffman |publisher=Metropolitan Museum of Art |access-date=2016-03-21}}
"It would indeed be progress, if through mass production there would be an output of commodities that bore a simple directness of design," Pola Hoffmann said in a 1931 interview. "By choosing only those things that are simple, we derive greater satisfaction from them—we do not tire of them so quickly. … Only those furnishings should be purchased that we feel are necessary, that serve a utilitarian purpose. The more simple and practical the furniture and accessories, the less work is required to keep them clean. This is equally true for clothes."{{cite news |date=April 28, 1931 |title=This Modern World: Simplify Surroundings to Needs of Modern Existence |newspaper=Vidette-Messenger |location=Valparaiso, Indiana }}
In late 1931, writer Lewis Gannett and his wife Ruth (previously married to designer Egmont Arens) took Wolfgang and Pola Hoffmann with them when they visited author Rex Stout, who was building a modernist concrete-and-steel house of his own design on a hill between Brewster, New York, and Danbury, Connecticut. The marriages of the Stouts and the Hoffmanns were troubled, and both ended the following year. Pola Hoffmann and Rex Stout were married on December 21, 1932, in a civil ceremony at his home, High Meadow.{{cite book |last=McAleer |first=John J. |date=1977 |title=Rex Stout: A Biography |location=Boston |publisher=Little, Brown and Company |isbn=9780316553407 }}{{Rp|233–236}} She became a naturalized citizen of the U.S. in 1936.
After her second marriage Pola Stout was an influential textile designer,{{cite book |editor-last=Kirkham |editor-first=Pat |date=2000 |title=Women Designers in the USA, 1900–2000 |location=New Haven, Connecticut |publisher=Yale University Press |page=151 |isbn=9780300093315 }} one of a select group that pioneered a craft weaving revival in the 1930s.{{cite journal |last=Blaszczyk |first=Regina Lee |date=Spring 2008 |title=Designing Synthetics, Promoting Brands: Dorothy Liebes, DuPont Fibres and Post-war American Interiors |journal=Journal of Design History |publisher=Design History Society |volume=21 |issue=1 |page=79 |doi=10.1093/jdh/epm038 |jstor=25228567 }} Her large, light-filled workroom was in the east wing of the second floor of High Meadow. She had two daughters and a harmonious, productive household with Rex Stout.{{cite news |last=Ryan |first=Aileen ("Betty Ann") |date=September 21, 1941 |title=Pola Stout, Designer of Fine Wools |newspaper=The Milwaukee Journal }}{{cite news |date=September 21, 1941 |title=American Woolen Designer Creates Fabrics in Her House on Hilltop |newspaper=The Milwaukee Journal }} The New York Times noted that "while she is spinning yarns in one wing of their hill-top farmhouse, he is spinning his yarns about Nero Wolfe in another."
High Meadow Loom supplied the top fashion houses in New York City and created collections for Dunhill and Otterburn in Great Britain.{{cite magazine |last=Adler |first=Paula |date=March–April 1964 |title=Five Designers—Five Approaches |url=http://digital.craftcouncil.org/cdm/compoundobject/collection/p15785coll2/id/4909/rec/8 |magazine=Craft Horizons |publisher=American Craftsmen's Council |volume=24 |issue=2 |pages=31–36 |access-date=2016-03-18 }}{{Rp|33}} Although Stout had begun her textile design career by creating hand-loomed fabrics for special garments and individual patrons,{{cite news |last=Waldron |first=Ann |date=February 23, 1962 |title=She's Talented—and Vocal |url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=888&dat=19620223&id=HUAhAAAAIBAJ&pg=3886,1639644&hl=en |newspaper=St. Petersburg Times |access-date=2016-03-23 }} she found the greatest satisfaction in planning designs that were executed on power looms.
File:Pola Stout fabric label.jpg
From 1940 to 1945{{cite news |date=October 17, 1984 |title=Pola Stout, 82, Is Dead; A Designer of Textiles |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1984/10/17/obituaries/pola-stout-82-is-dead-a-designer-of-textiles.html |newspaper=The New York Times |access-date=2016-03-06 }} Stout was head of a division within Botany Worsted Mills called Pola Stout Fabrics; she was the first woman to receive such an opportunity in the American woolen industry. In 1946 she incorporated, with offices in New York City. Underwritten by eight manufacturers, she leased space in Philadelphia for a textile mill of her own that she operated from 1946 to 1954.{{Rp|33}}{{cite news |date=July 16, 1946 |title=Mrs. Stout Starts Textile Mill |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1946/07/16/archives/mrs-stout-starts-textile-mill.html |newspaper=The New York Times |access-date=2016-03-18 }} In 1948, Pola Stout Inc. employed a staff of 17 weavers and produced 2,000 yards of fine fabric per week.{{cite news |last=Brundige |first=Lenore |date=March 5, 1948 |title=Fabrics Must Have Balance, Contrast, Designer Says |url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1144&dat=19480305&id=hvYaAAAAIBAJ&pg=1919,1797778&hl=en |newspaper=The Pittsburgh Press |access-date=2016-03-18 }} She later created collections for J. P. Stevens & Company (1958–59) and was a designer-consultant for the Ames Textile Corporation.{{cite news |date=July 29, 1962 |title=How Fashion Trends Grow To Be Discussed at TWU |url=https://www.newspapers.com/newspage/23577800/ |newspaper=Denton Record-Chronicle |access-date=2016-03-28 }}
"Mass production methods in the American clothing industry make it possible for everyone to dress fashionably and attractively," she said. "My own feeling is that mass taste is potentially more stable than the taste of people who love fashion for its own sake—and can afford it. The average woman, I have found, is honest, simple, and unassuming in her taste, and I feel it is the responsibility of the designer to take more interest in her basic needs."
Stout designed correlated woolens in three different weights, with colors and patterns that matched or pleasantly contrasted. Each piece in a wardrobe could be worn with another: a suit purchased one year would harmonize with a coat purchased the next season, and with a dress or jacket purchased the next. Based on quality, beauty, durability and classic styling, the simple plan built an enduring wardrobe that expressed the owner's personality. Pola Stout fabrics were sold by the yard in fine stores including B. Altman and Company, which in 1942 created a new department devoted exclusively to Stout's line of Botany Perennials.{{cite news |date=October 17, 1942 |title=American Textiles Gain in Popularity|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1942/10/17/archives/american-textiles-gain-in-popularity-many-visit-altmans-new-display.html |newspaper=The New York Times |access-date=2016-03-24 }} In that collection and its successor, Botany Annuals, Stout applied the scientific discipline of the Ostwald color system to her own similar system.{{cite magazine |last=Feeney |first=Helen |date=November–December 1957 |title=Exhibitions |url=http://digital.craftcouncil.org/cdm/compoundobject/collection/p15785coll2/id/4655/rec/73 |magazine=Craft Horizons |publisher=American Craftsmen's Council |volume=17 |issue=6 |page=44 |access-date=2016-03-18 }}
"Her exquisitely beautiful woolens are a thrilling sight," wrote the Chicago Tribune. "She weaves with the skill of a composer of symphonies, with the imagination of an artist trying to capture a misty blue morning haze, and with the integrity of a completely honest person. All are reflected in her incomparable fabrics, the very breath of the American scene and way of life. … Her soft tones in checks or the bold stripes and plaids are what make American clothes the tops of any in the world."
Stout created fabric collections for name designers including Elizabeth Hawes,{{cite magazine |author= |title=On and Off the Avenue |magazine=The New Yorker|date=May 28, 1936 |page=62 }} Muriel King,{{cite magazine |author= |title=On and Off the Avenue |magazine=The New Yorker|date=October 21, 1939 |page=68 }} Mainbocher,{{cite news |last=Connolly |first=Mary |date=September 20, 1957 |title=Pola Stout Shows Textiles in Bennington |newspaper=The Berkshire Eagle }}{{cite book |last=Sullivan |first=Eleanor |year=2005 |orig-year=Autumn 1984 |chapter=Pola Weinbach Stout |editor1-last=Kaye |editor1-first=Marvin |editor1-link=Marvin Kaye |title=The Nero Wolfe Files |location=Rockville, MD |publisher=Wildside Press |pages=69–73 |isbn=9780809544943 }}{{Rp|70}} Jo Copeland, Christian Dior, Edith Head, Norman Norell, Clare Potter, Edward Molyneux, Valentina,{{Rp|266}} Philip Mangone, Vincent Monte-Sano, Pauline Trigère,{{cite news |last=Seeger |first=Rea |date=October 11, 1947 |title=For Top Beauty in Rich Fabrics: Buy American |url=http://archives.chicagotribune.com/1947/10/11/page/14/article/for-top-beauty-in-rich-fabrics-buy-american |newspaper=Chicago Tribune |access-date=2016-03-23 }} Zuckerman & Kraus and Irene.{{cite news |date=September 16, 1952 |title=Designs by Irene Emphasize Suits |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1952/09/16/archives/designs-by-irene-emphasize-suits-fall-and-winter-collection-has.html |newspaper=The New York Times |access-date=2016-03-23 }}{{cite web |url=http://ancientindustries.blogspot.com/2010/09/swatches-for-irene-collection-his-girl.html |title=Living in Pictures |last1=Wilson |first1=Megan |date=October 9, 2010 |website=Ancient Industries |access-date=2016-03-23 }} She often worked with Adrian, in a famous collaboration that began in the 1940s.{{cite web |url=http://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/83110 |title=Gilbert Adrian Suit |date=1948 |publisher=Metropolitan Museum of Art |access-date=2016-03-23 }}{{cite magazine |last=Elliott |first=Mary |date=April–May 2001 |title=Remembering Adrian |url=https://issuu.com/pennieannie/docs/threads_magazine_94_-_may_2001 |magazine=Threads |issue=94 |pages=72–77 }}{{Rp|74–75}}
File:Pola-Stout-Portrait-1941.jpg's 1941 caricature portrait of Pola Stout is part of the National Portrait Gallery collection at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C.{{cite web |url=http://collections.si.edu/search/results.htm?q=record_ID%3Anpg_NPG.83.282&repo=DPLA |title=Pola Stout |last=Fruhauf |first=Aline |date=1941 |publisher=National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution |access-date=2017-06-07}}]]
"In his quest to use unique textiles," wrote the Metropolitan Museum of Art, "Adrian frequently incorporated those of designer Pola Stout, whose fabrics often featured blocks and stripes of color. Adrian found Stout's geometric patterns well-suited to his pieced garments where he employed a favorite technique of manipulating striped fabrics to make them serve a dual purpose, as structure and as ornament."{{cite web |url=http://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/156554 |title=Gilbert Adrian Evening Dress |date=1948 |publisher=Metropolitan Museum of Art |access-date=2016-03-23 }} Stout also created a collection of sheer wools, some in subtle dark plaids and harlequin diamonds, that Adrian used for menswear.{{cite news |date=August 25, 1953 |title=Adrian Pioneers in Color and Comfort for Men |newspaper=Waterloo Daily Courier }}{{cite news |last=Walker |first=Frances |date=December 10, 1954 |title=Elegant Leisure Shirts Please Men |url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1129&dat=19541210&id=b3xIAAAAIBAJ&pg=3539,5280162&hl=en |newspaper=Pittsburgh Post Gazette }}
After visiting Hyde Park in 1940, Stout had a navy-and-ivory plaid woolen shirt made for President Franklin D. Roosevelt,{{cite web |url=http://www.nerowolfe.org/pdf/scrapbook/2014_FDR_Library_Research/Pola_Stout_Corr_re_Shirts.pdf |title=Pola Stout Correspondence with Grace Tully |publisher=The Wolfe Pack |access-date=2016-03-25}} who wore it during the war.{{cite web |url=http://www.nerowolfe.org/pdf/stout/home_family/Pola_stout/FDR_in_shirt_from_Pola_Stout.pdf |title=Photograph inscribed by Franklin D. Roosevelt |publisher=The Wolfe Pack |access-date=2016-03-25}} In July 1949, Eleanor Roosevelt interviewed Stout on her radio program.{{cite web |url=http://www.fdrlibrary.marist.edu/archives/collections/utteranceser.html |title=Recorded Speeches and Utterances by Eleanor Roosevelt, 1933–1962 |publisher=Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum |access-date=2016-03-24}} That autumn and on later occasions, Stout sent the former First Lady a collection of fabrics she designed and wove especially for her, with suggestions for her dressmaker.{{cite web |url=http://www.nerowolfe.org/pdf/scrapbook/2014_FDR_Library_Research/ER_Corr_Re_fabric.pdf |title=Pola Stout Correspondence with Eleanor Roosevelt |publisher=The Wolfe Pack |access-date=2016-03-25}}
In 1957, Bennington College presented the first comprehensive exhibit of Stout's textiles—a selection of hand-loomed fabrics, power-loomed fabrics made in her Philadelphia mill and in Great Britain, examples of yarns, portfolios of coordinated fabrics, and photographs of clothing made from Pola Stout textiles by noted American designers.{{cite news |date=September 11, 1957 |title=Pola Stout Exhibit at College |newspaper=North Adams Transcript }}{{cite web |url=https://crossettlibrary.dspacedirect.org/handle/11209/8353 |title=Letter from Pola Stout to Isabel Sherwood |date=April 29, 1957 |publisher=Bennington College |access-date=2016-03-24}} In remarks prepared for the opening of the exhibit, art historian Alexander Dorner{{cite web |url=https://dictionaryofarthistorians.org/dornera.htm |title=Alexander Dorner |website=Dictionary of Art Historians |access-date=2016-03-24 }} introduced Stout as one of the most important pioneers in the field of applied arts.{{cite web |url=https://crossettlibrary.dspacedirect.org/handle/11209/8352 |title=Speech for the Opening of the Pola Stout Exhibition by Alexander Dorner |date=September 12, 1957 |publisher=Bennington College |access-date=2016-03-24}}
Other solo exhibitions of Stout's work were presented at the Philadelphia Museum College of Art and at the Fashion Institute of Technology, where Stout was an acting lecturer and consultant.
Stout was executor of Rex Stout's literary estate after her husband's death in October 1975. In her later years she partially completed a major project, composing a collection of 50 plaids, one for each of the United States. By 1981 she had moved from High Meadow to Stamford, Connecticut. She died October 12, 1984, aged 82, following a heart attack.
{{multiple image
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| direction = horizontal
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| image1 = His-Girl-Friday-Grant-Russell.jpg
| alt1 =
| caption1 = Costume designers used Pola Stout's distinctive textiles for films including His Girl Friday (Rosalind Russell, right) and Laura
| image2 = Pola-Stout-Blanket.jpg
| alt2 =
| caption2 = Pola Stout designer's composition "blanket" for a power-loomed design exhibited in Fabrics International (1961–62), sponsored by the Museum of Contemporary Crafts and the Philadelphia Museum College of Art
| image3 = Pola-Stout-Weaves.jpg
| alt3 =
| caption3 = Pola Stout and details of two wool fabrics—a two-ply warp and filling (left) that gives three different diagonal twills, and (right) a single-ply construction
| image4 = FDR-Pola-Stout-Shirt-1943.jpg
| alt4 =
| caption4 = FDR wore a plaid woolen shirt given to him by Pola Stout when he returned to the White House December 17, 1943, after a five-week expedition to North Africa and the Middle East.
}}
{{clear}}
Exhibitions
Cultural references
Pola Stout is regarded as the prototype for several women of integrity and purpose in Rex Stout's Nero Wolfe corpus.{{cite book |last=McAleer |first=John |editor1-last=Stout |editor1-first=Rex |year=1995 |orig-year=1985 |chapter=Introduction |title=Death Times Three |location=New York |publisher=Bantam Books |pages=xv–xvi |isbn=0-553-76305-9}} Her place in the textile and fashion industry furnished background{{cite magazine |last=Johnston |first=Alva |author-link=Alva Johnston |date=July 23, 1949 |title=Alias Nero Wolfe II |magazine=The New Yorker |page=40 }} and plot for such stories as The Red Box (1937), Red Threads (1939), and "Frame-Up for Murder" (1958). Direct references to Pola Stout Inc. appear in the 1949 novel, The Second Confession (chapter 6), in which Madeline Sperling wears "a soft but smooth wool dress of browns and blacks that looked like a PSI fabric", and in the 1969 novel Death of a Dude (Chapter 3) in which Archie Goodwin "rinsed off and changed to a PSI shirt and brown woolen slacks".
References
{{reflist}}
External links
{{Commons category|Pola Stout}}
- [http://collections.si.edu/search/results.htm?q=record_ID%3Anpg_NPG.83.282&repo=DPLA Pola Stout portrait] (1941) by Aline Fruhauf at the National Portrait Gallery
- [http://www.nerowolfe.org/pdf/stout/home_family/Pola_stout/FDR_in_shirt_from_Pola_Stout.pdf Inscribed photograph] of President Franklin D. Roosevelt (1944) wearing a shirt given to him by Pola Stout, framed in the same woolen fabric; also seen here (1943)
- [http://fashionmuseum.fitnyc.edu/view/objects/asitem/762/8/dynasty-desc?t:state:flow=a5adf540-ce69-46d6-b1ef-5082b23e9378 Suit] (c. 1946) designed by Adrian and Pola Stout, at the Fashion Institute of Technology
- [http://collections.lacma.org/node/207425 Woman's two-piece suit] (c. 1946) designed by Adrian, at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art
- [http://cprhw.tt/o/2DyrK/ Blanket] (c. 1970) designed by Pola Stout, at the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum
- [https://web.archive.org/web/20170927175855/http://goldstein.design.umn.edu/exhibitions/previous/FashionLives.html Gallery shots] from Fashion Lives, Fashion Lives, exhibit at the University of Minnesota's Goldstein Museum of Design (August 20–October 8, 2000)
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Category:Polish emigrants to the United States
Category:American textile designers
Category:American industrial designers
Category:American women interior designers
Category:American interior designers
Category:Businesspeople from New York (state)
Category:People from Danbury, Connecticut
Category:People from Brewster, New York
Category:University of Applied Arts Vienna alumni
Category:Fashion Institute of Technology people
Category:20th-century American women textile artists