Ethel B. Guy

Ethel B. Guy was an interior designer who lived and worked in Kansas City, Missouri, from 1920 until her death in 1983. By arranging furniture layouts and coordinating color palettes, she applied her skill as an artist to beautify many homes in Kansas City.

Ethel Benninghoff Guy was born on March 22, 1883, in Greenville, Pennsylvania, but grew up in Butler, Kansas. In 1912, Ethel married Clarence L. Guy, a dentist from Wichita. However, he would die from typhoid fever only four years later, leaving her to raise their infant son alone. In 1917, Guy moved in with her mother and four sisters in Kansas City.

After her traumatic loss, Ethel Guy began taking classes at the Kansas City Art Institute. She excelled in her studies and was recognized as an up-and-coming designer. In 1922, she exhibited textile designs in the Midwestern Artists' Exhibition, then won a competition for the best home and garden design the next year.

Tragedy would soon strike again, however. In 1925, her twelve-year-old son, Richard, died from a strep infection. To cope with her grief, Ethel Guy again threw herself into her creative passion and co-founded the interior design company Lucy Drage, Inc. with Lucy Drage and Margaret Ostertag. Drage was a wealthy socialite with a love for fashion, textiles and interior design. The business quickly found success with a storefront in the Country Club Plaza shopping area. Together, they planned and executed interiors for many homes and businesses, often collaborating with architects to create holistic schemes. Ethel Guy remained vice president of the Lucy Drage company from 1930 until 1965.

Ethel Guy contributed to local and regional arts communities as a creator and educator. She taught at the Kansas City Art Institute from 1934 to 1937, and frequently gave lectures on interior design topics. As a long-time member of the American Institute of Interior Designers, she served as vice president of the Midwestern Chapter in the 1960s.

Ethel Guy worked on exhibition committees for the Plaza Art Fair and the Mid-America Artists' Association exhibitions. Sometimes she displayed her designs as artworks, as in the Kansas City Women's Exposition of 1926. Drage and Guy designed the gallery spaces of the 1954 Mid-America Artists Association exhibition, coordinating artists' submissions with furniture and decor. Ethel Guy retired from Lucy Drage, Inc. in 1965. She died in Kansas City in 1983, at age one hundred.