A 1922 article in Arts and Decoration, “Vitalizing the Silhouette, a new note in American Poster Work” (Vol. XVIII, No. 1)by Lida McCabe records Donner’s contributions in costume design. Here is the first installment on page 17:
“The still-born black and white silhouette of early Victorian conception has come to life! Charged with dynamic color and vibrant line, significantly it interprets restless Now, and is America’s latest contribution to the poster art. As an eye-arrestor, imagination-stimulator it promises to go far. For happily, it credits “the man in the street” with vision beyond the physical eye. Daringly colorful, vibrantly active, it conveys an impression of the human face without defining its features, yet, never misses recognition.
This pictorial innovation is the work of Miss Vyvyan Donner. How this clever American girl conceived, developed and “put it across” is the story of the misunderstood younger generation, fearless of the unconventional defiant of the old order. Miss Donner’s vitalized silhouettes materialized last March. Before summer’s wane they held up the lobby of three New York theatres, and are now the talk of the art and theatrical worlds. In the fine or graphic arts, as in every medium of expression, there is a right time to bob up, a right time to disappear as Gilbert and Sullivan tunefully emphasized. To the one who bobs up opportunity and full-fledges, a thousand come too soon or too late, and with little more than a bonne disposition fumble along, often in the wake of false leads, and pass out with dreams unrealized, their efforts seemingly a cipher in the world’s work.
Fortunately, it is to an America awakened to the value of color in life and art that Miss Donner was born. This color awakening, however tardy, is our aesthetic recompense from Uncle Sam’s indiscriminate hospitality to Old World undesirables! Hers is a sense of color inherent and highly sensitized. It is through color that she sees, feels and realizes form. Had she come to the America that produced “The White City” of the Chicago World Fair (1893) – our art naissance – this priceless gift would doubtless have lain dormant, inarticulate, or if expressed, been a waste upon the desert air, so remote was the public from today’s color riot. Three month’s study at Cooper Union, three months at the Art Student’s League, drawing from life, cover Miss Donner’s academic training.”
And there will be more tomorrow!
