Dorothy Draper - Legacy

Legacy

In May 2006, the Museum of the City of New York held an exhibition of Draper's work, curated by Donald Albrecht and designed by the Manhattan studio Pure+Applied, called "The High Style of Dorothy Draper". He has said, “Taking an eighteenth-century chair normally done in wood and making it in clear plastic is a Dorothy Draper kind of thing. And she is a fascinating person. All of her tips must have been really great for housewives in the fifties. To have this woman telling them, ‘Don’t be afraid! Paint the door green!’” Draper-designed furniture was lent by The Greenbrier Hotel and The Arrowhead Springs resort—two of her best-known projects. A 9-foot-tall (2.7 m) white "bird-cage" chandelier that Draper designed for the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Dorotheum cafe was also on display. See images of the exhibit here: .

From December 2006 through July 2007, the Women's Museum in Dallas, Texas hosted "In the Pink: The Legendary Life of Dorothy Draper." It featured archival photographs of Draper's work from The Stoneleigh Hotel and the St. Anthony. The exhibition was designed by Pure+Applied of New York. The exhibition then moved to the Museum of Art in Fort Lauderdale from February through June 2008.

Her 1941 book Entertaining is Fun! How to Be a Popular Hostess, was reissued in 2004, which had a hot pink, polka-dotted cover and was a best seller. (ISBN 0-8478-2619-8)

In 2006, Dorothy Draper was featured in an exhibition done in her memory in the Museum of New York City. The exhibition moved from NYC to Texas, and then to Florida.

Much of her work survives today, in the lobbies of apartment buildings, hotels (The Carlyle in New York and Hampshire House until recently) and of course, the legendary Greenbrier in White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia, specifically in The Victorian Writing Room, once called the most photographed room in the United States.