Lillian Oppenheimer

Lillian Vorhaus Oppenheimer ( Lillian Rose Vorhaus, formerly Lillian Vorhaus Kruskal; October 24, 1898 – July 24, 1992) was an American origami pioneer from New York City. During the latter half of her life, Oppenheimer became a leading figure in origami and is credited with popularizing the art form in the United States. She adopted the Japanese word origami because she liked the sound of it and felt like the English term paper folding was too vague. Origami eventually became the more common name.

In 1928, Oppenheimer entertained her sick daughter with an origami book. She picked origami up again as a hobby in 1953. After reading Robert Harbin's Paper Magic (1956), Oppenheimer stopped thinking of origami only as a pastime and began to consider it an art form in its own right. She began to teach origami professionally and corresponded with prominent paper folders, including Akira Yoshizawa of Japan and Ligia Montoya of Argentina. In 1958, The New York Times ran an article on Oppenheimer which gave origami more publicity in the U.S. than ever before.

To capitalize on the attention, Oppenheimer started holding regular lessons in New York City and dubbed her informal group "the Origami Center". It became the center of a new American school of origami. In 1980, Oppenheimer and her colleagues established The Friends of The Origami Center of America, a nonprofit sister organization. The Friends were renamed OrigamiUSA in 1994 and is the main origami organization in the United States, with numerous regional branches.

Early life and first marriage Lillian Rose Vorhaus was born on October 24, 1898, in Manhattan, New York City, to Bernand Vorhaus and Mollie Grossman. She was a Jew of Austrian, Hungarian, Czech, and Polish ancestry. Her father, Bernand, was a non-practicing attorney who immigrated from Poland and made a living importing furs. Her mother was born in the United States. and he owned a wholesale fur clothing firm with his brother. Living in New Rochelle, New York, they had five childrenWilliam, Molly, Rosaly, Martin, and Josephbetween 1919 and 1928. Lillian's husband was irritated by her desire to join him in business, believing that she should pursue activities "[more] appropriate for a suburban matron". Because the book's instructions were difficult to understand, Lillian did not learn the more complicated pieces. After Molly recovered, Lillian did not do origami for many years. Kruskal asked Kramer how to make her own Flapping Bird, but he said that he lacked the ability to teach it to others. Harry was the founder and president of Brand & Oppenheimer, Inc., a leading textile business, and a civic leader; he was also a director at the New School for Social Research.

Oppenheimer was interested in origami for recreation. She would acquaint herself with other practitioners and steadily learned more about the art. In contrast, her paper folding partner Lourie, a therapist at Bellevue Hospital, used it for her patients. On Lourie's suggestion, the two began teaching origami to those who were interestedfrom groups at the Red Cross, Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts to nursing home residentsand they started doing origami professionally. At the Hotel Irving, where Oppenheimer lived, Lourie moved into a studio where she could hold lessons. She later said that when she visited Harbin, the two were still referring to their art form as paper folding. By 1958, Oppenheimer was consistently using the word origami. It was by the Japanese name that she introduced her art form to Americans on her future radio and television appearances.

Due to Oppenheimer's efforts to promote origami, which eventually culminated in the Origami Center, the Japanese word origami usurped paper folding as the dominant name in the English-speaking world and became recognised internationally. Nick Robinson, a former president of the British Origami Society, claimed that origami has been established in the English language since 1958,

Wider attention

Lourie wanted to approach newspapers and museums. In contrast, Oppenheimer did not believe in seeking out publicity, and thought that attention would come in due time. Lourie managed to get three articles published in Hokubei Shimpo, an English-language newspaper for Japanese expatriates in New York, but they attracted little attention. The concert pianist Sylvia Rabinof, one of Oppenheimer's closest friends, knew the journalist Meyer Berger, who wrote the popular column "About New York" for The New York Times. Oppenheimer was initially reluctant, but she allowed Rabinof to send the Hokubei Shimpo articles to Berger. ran at the museum in May 1959. She moved to the Manhattan neighborhood of Greenwich Village afterwards.

Death and legacy

Akira Yoshizawa in Japan and Ligia Montoya in Argentine had explored new techniques of folding; Gershon Legman, had done extensive research; Robert Harbin had written the book [Paper Magic]. But without more, paperfolding might still have withered and relapsed into obscurity once more. Paperfolding required someone with the energy, enthusiasm and charisma needed to present it to the world for what it was now revealed to be. That person was Lillian Oppenheimer. — David Lister, British origami historian