Lili Blumenau (1912–1976) was an American fiber artist. She was a pivotal figure in the development of fiber arts and textile arts, particularly weaving, in the United States during the mid-part of the 20th century.
Blumenau is a graduate of the Berlin Academy of Fine Arts, the Académie Scandinave in Paris, and was the first woman to graduate from the New York School of Textile Technology.[1]
After her education, Blumenau went on to become an instructor in several schools in New York City including Columbia University's Teacher's College, where she started a weaving workshop. She founded the weaving department at the Fashion Institute of Technology and Design in 1952.[1] In addition to maintaining her own weaving studio on Tenth Street in Manhattan, she served as the curator of textiles at Cooper Union Museum from 1944 to 1950.[1]
In 1955 Blumenau authored the text The Art and Craft of Hand Weaving, Including Fabric Design,[2] which had a significant impact on her field. This text provided technical details and patterns for loom weaving as well as a conceptual approach to the methodologies of hand weaving as "engaging, fully-human, and life-giving".[1] Her work provided inspiration to the Catholic Worker Movement, a collection of autonomous communities of Catholics to whom she taught weaving to several members at the Peter Maurin Farm.[3]
Lili Blumenau's works are in the permanent collection at the Cooper Hewitt Museum.[4]