Ed Rossbach

[1] His career began with ceramics and weaving in the 1940s, but evolved over the next decade into basket making, as he experimented playfully with traditional techniques and nontraditional materials such as plastic and newspaper.

Rossbach earned a BA in Painting and Design at the University of Washington in Seattle, Washington in 1940, an MA in art education from Columbia University in New York City in 1941, and an MFA in ceramics and weaving from the Cranbrook Academy of Art in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan in 1947.

[1] Whereas Rossbach felt himself "temperamentally unsuited" to industrial designing, Westphall created commercial textiles during the 1950s.

[5]: 240  Both were influential teachers and designers who helped to create a transition from mid-century modernism and its emphasis on the functionality of textiles, to nonfunctional fiber art.

Retrospectives of his work have included Ed Rossbach: 40 Years of Exploration and Innovation in Fiber Art (1990) and Ties that bind: Fiber art by Ed Rossbach and Katherine Westphal from the Daphne Farago collection (1997).