Elizabeth Olds

Olds was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota to a middle-class family. Olds's mother was an art historian, and her mother exposed Olds and her sister, Eleanor, to art through visits to the Walker Art Center and Minneapolis Institute of Arts. Olds's art was first documented in her high school yearbook, featuring a cartoon sketch of a goose at tea. She studied Home Economics and Architectural Drawing at the University of Minnesota from 1916-1918, and received a scholarship to study at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design from 1918-1921. In 1921, Olds received another scholarship to study at the Art Students League of New York where she studied under George Luks. ==Career==

, Olds, and unidentified, with Reginald Marsh facing camera, (Archives of American Art)|left Early works The early style of Olds reflects Luks's influence on her art. The pair experimented with the style and themes of the Ashcan school, visiting the Lower East Side of New York to observe the lives of urban immigrants. They accomplished this with a few other artists in the silkscreen unit of the Graphic Arts Division of the WPA-FAP in New York. From 1939 until 1941, Olds and Gottlieb opened and ran the independent Silk Screen School for students interested in learning the newest printmaking technologies. Her work was included in the 1940 MoMA show American Color Prints Under $10. The show was organized as a vehicle for bringing affordable fine art prints to the general public. Olds submitted and reproduced 10 prints in The New Masses in 1936 and 1937, a leftist magazine at the time. Her papers are held at the University of Texas. Children's books Olds wrote and illustrated six children's picture books. The books published by Houghton Mifflin were created using lithography, and the books published by Scribner's were created using woodblocks. Feather Mountain, published by Houghton Mifflin in 1951, was a runner-up for the annual American Library Association Caldecott Medal, which recognizes "the most distinguished American picture book for children." • The Big Fire (Houghton Mifflin, 1945), • Riding the Rails (HM, 1948), • Feather Mountain (HM, 1951), • Deep Treasure: the story of oil (HM, 1958), • Plop plop Ploppie (Scribner's, 1962), • Little Una (Scribner's, 1963), ==Personal life and retirement==

Olds never married. She had close friendships with Harry Gottlieb, Berenice Abbott, and Elizabeth McCausland. In 1972, Olds retired to Sarasota, Florida where she worked until her death in 1991. ==Awards and exhibitions==

• 1934: "The Dying Gangster," lithograph, wins silver at the Kansas City Art Institute. • 1992: Exhibition at the Live Oak Art Center, Columbus, Texas. • 2024: Public Works: Art by Elizabeth Olds, a retrospective exhibit of more than 100 prints, paintings, drawings, and illustrations from the 1920s to the 1960s, Harry Ransom Center, University of Texas at Austin. ==References==