Elizabeth Olds

Elizabeth Olds (1896 – 1991) was an American artist known for her work in developing silkscreen as a fine arts medium. She was a painter and illustrator, but is primarily known as a printmaker, using silkscreen, woodcut, and lithography processes. In 1926, she became the first female honored with the Guggenheim Fellowship. She studied under George Luks, was a social realist, and worked for the Public Works of Art Project and Federal Art Project during the Great Depression. In her later career, Olds wrote and illustrated six children's books. After the war, Olds redirected her skills and began experimenting with watercolor, collage, and woodblock prints. Her silk screen, Three Alarm Fire (1945), prompted Roberta Fansler to suggest that Olds should illustrate children’s books. In three of her books, Olds wrote about firefighters, trains, and oil, educating her readers about industrialism. In the early 1950s, Olds was hired as an illustrator-reporter for The New Republic and Fortune (magazine). In the summers of the 1950s and 1960s, Olds was awarded artist-in-residence positions at the artists’ colonies of Yaddo near Saratoga Springs in New York and MacDowell. Her papers

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