Jean Elizabeth Muir CBE FCSD (July 17 1928 - May 28 1995) was an English fashion designer (though she herself preferred the description, dressmaker: Daily Mail, 12 June 2006). She was born in London of Scottish parents, educated at the Bedford Girls' Modern School, which she left at the age of fifteen to pursue a career in fashion, encouraged in this pursuit by her exceptional gifts, even as a schoolgirl, as an illustrator.

She worked as a saleswoman at Liberty & Co and a designer for Jaeger before starting the Jane & Jane label in 1961. She left Jane & Jane in 1966 and set up Jean Muir Ltd in October of that year. Her husband Harry Leukert was also her business partner. They had no children, although Leukert fathered a daughter by another women whom he married after Muir's death from breast cancer ^* in 1995 (Sunday Times, 4 June 2006).

Muir was described by The New York Times as "one of London's most influential and modern minimalists." The oldest in a family of six or seven siblings, she worked throughout her childhood to support her mother and brothers and sisters.

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NYT > Art & Design

Art: Change Arrives on Tiptoes at the Frick Mansion
Fri, 29 Aug 2008 04:50:59 -0000
Current renovations at the beloved Frick Collection offer the brief chance to see the museum and its contents in a completely different context.
Art Review | 'Early Buddhist Manuscript Painting': Palm-Leaf Offerings From Ancient India
Fri, 29 Aug 2008 04:53:10 -0000
The Metropolitan Museum offers finely done and pristinely preserved palm-leaf paintings, which served as guides, protective charms and objects of worship.
Look Closely: Repetition for Effect
Fri, 29 Aug 2008 14:26:59 -0000
Librado Romero, a Times photographer, has singled out fragments of works from the Met’s permanent collection as part of a challenge to readers to find the originals. This week we offer patterns.
Art Review | 'Looking at Music': Artist as Musician, and the Other Way Around
Fri, 29 Aug 2008 16:17:15 -0000
“Looking at Music” at the Museum of Modern Art, a show that includes audio recordings and small-press publications, emphasizes the experimental nature of the late 1960s and early ’70s.
Art Review | Pipe, Glass, Bottle of Rum: Bits of Paper, Scraps of Cloth and Photographs of Photographs
Fri, 29 Aug 2008 04:54:36 -0000
“Pipe, Glass, Bottle of Rum: The Art of Appropriation” is a worthy but frustrating exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art that features more than 100 works from the museum’s permanent collection.
Antiques: Charles Rohlfs’s Theatrical Furniture to Go on the Road
Fri, 29 Aug 2008 04:56:26 -0000
A retrospective of the designer, known for his woodworking skills and charm, begins a three-year tour next June at the Milwaukee Art Museum.

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