DAN RUBINSTEIN

The following are a trio of profiles I wrote recently on some of FIT’s leading faculty for their recently relaunched alumni magazine, HUE. Download the PDF here.

Harriet Korman

The abstract paintings of Harriet Korman, who teaches in the Fine Arts Department, are far more than celebrations of color. Her compositions of intersecting shapes, filled in with dynamic hues, challenge viewers to adopt a whole new way of seeing. Her brilliant quadriptych, Can Be Joined Any Way (2002), takes this notion one step further. The piece comprises four square canvases that can be arranged in hundreds—if not thousands—of different ways. “I love how abstraction means different things to different people,” says the Forest Hills native. “My paintings are very philosophical that way. If someone purchased this painting, they could change it as frequently as they wanted to; they can participate.” Korman’s creative process is organic and improvisational. “I paint multiple pieces at a time, moving back and forth between them,” Korman says. “A painting has to grow. You change it, modify it. The best thing is when a surprise occurs. It happens all the time.”

She has taught drawing and painting at FIT for nearly 20 years, which could be described as mutually beneficial: “Teaching makes you more immediate and more spontaneous—those things really help an artist,” she says. Her renown has continued to grow. She has appeared three times in the Whitney Museum of Art’s Biennial and once at P.S. 1 Contemporary Art Center, and she showed her most recent work this year at Lennon, Weinberg, the Chelsea gallery that represents her. A review by Ken Johnson in The New York Times placed her work in the company of Klee, Miró, Kandinsky, and Mondrian. It concluded, “To sit and gaze at [her work] is to remember that one of art’s purposes—and not the least one—is visual pleasure.”

Dennis Lee

For many designers working in the traditional wing of the decorative arts, artistic interpretation is unwelcome. But for veteran textile designer Dennis Lee, Interior Design ’78, true design doesn’t just copy the past; it reinvents it.

Lee, an instructor of Fabric Styling and Textile/Surface Design, owns Tyler Hall, a 14-year-old boutique company in Hell’s Kitchen that produces whimsical traditional wallpapers and fabrics to the trade—all designed by hand— under its own label, as well as licensed work for renowned top-shelf brands. Among the firm’s clients are noted designers Mario Buatta, David Easton, and Matthew Patrick Smyth, Interior Design ’80.

For each collection, Lee draws inspiration from a single locale. “I act as a new set of eyes examining a period of history or cultural capital,” he says. In the pattern Summertime, for his Vieux Carré collection, inspired by the American South, he deftly mixes eras and motifs synonymous with the region. Figures in dress of different periods cavort and lounge in idealized settings, painting “a romantic memoir” rather than an exact historical reproduction. “If I’m going to install wallpaper in my home, I don’t want anything dark,” Lee says. “I like things that are lighter and a little frothier.”

While his designs are fanciful interpretations, Lee’s colorways are historically grounded, which makes them not just accurate, but commercially viable. “I aim to please myself when it comes to designs. But for colors, I have to think about the customer,” Lee says. “I’m not a beige person, but believe me, I make sure to include it as an option.”

Bil Donovan

In an age where casual dress is the norm and not the exception, noted fashion illustrator and faculty member Bil Donovan is something of a throwback—and a proud one at that. “The age of elegance is gone,” Donovan laments. “There was a time when a woman wouldn’t dare to leave the house without makeup and the right gloves.” This old-school devotion to classic glamour led Donovan to illustrate a new adaptation of a book by legendary Hollywood costume designer and proto-stylist Edith Head. In The Dress Doctor: A Prescription for Style from A to Z, icons and themes of Head’s era are brought to life in vivid works, including this sultry Gloria Swanson rendered in brush and ink, inspired by her role in Sunset Boulevard. “Growing up in South Philadelphia—not exactly a capital of fashion—movies that featured [Head’s] work were my only outlet,” says the artist, who works in a variety of media, from graphite and acrylic to glitter and pastels. “These films were like Christmas presents. As a kid, after seeing all this glamour on screen, all I wanted to do was run home and draw what I had seen.”

Donovan moved to New York at 19 and studied drawing and illustration all over the city, from the Art Students League to the School of Visual Arts, before receiving his AAS in Fashion Illustration at FIT in 1978. At 30, he spent time abroad in Milan and elsewhere—including a stint in Paris as a shoe designer. He added numerous enviable credits to his resume, which now includes Vogue, L’Uomo Vogue, and Italian Elle. He has taught at the college for 15 years.

Donovan isn’t just an artist, but a budding scholar as well. He’s writing a textbook on fashion and lifestyle illustration to be published next year. And though fashion illustration may not be as prevalent as it once was, that didn’t stop the editors at InStyle magazine, who commissioned him to illustrate Meg Ryan wearing Calvin Klein for their October cover story. Edith, eat your heart out.