Cooper Hewitt says...
Dorothy Cole majored in art history at Radcliffe College from 1943 to 1945, before transferring to Black Mountain College in North Carolina to study painting under Josef Albers. She graduated in 1947 and moved to New York City, where she found success as a free-lance illustrator, contributing to magazines such as Mademoiselle, Look, Flair, and Interiors. In 1950 she married Dr. Bruce Ruddick, and the couple moved to Montreal; Ruddick gave up her commercial work and focused exclusively on her studio practice. She often used textile imagery, materials and techniques in her work, blurring the line between drawing and embroidery, sculpture and fiber art. Her final project, with her daughter Margie Ruddick, was a group of four “living” sculptures in the Bank of America tower at One Bryant Park, completed shortly before her death in 2010. Her work is included in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Museum of Modern Art, New York, and the Art Institute of Chicago.
