Elsa Ulbricht

(1885 Milwaukee, WI - 1980 Milwaukee, WI)

Elsa Ulbricht (born March 15, 1885 in Milwaukee) was an artist and an educator. She studied at the Milwaukee Normal School, receiving a degree in education before attending the Pratt Institute in New York, from which she graduated in 1911. During those years she was influenced by Wisconsin artists Alexander Mueller, George Raab, and Frederick Fursman. She attributed her lithographic skills to Robert von Neumann.  

Ulbricht was a Director of the Milwaukee Art Institute. Her diverse skills for teaching clay modeling, weaving, basketry, mechanical drawing and bookbinding helped her organize and develop the WPA Handicraft Project. This project employed 9,000 unskilled women during the Depression. 

In 1955, Ulbricht helped found and chaired the Art Department at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. Her summers were spent at the Ox-Bow Summer School of Painting in Saugatuck, MI, where she served for many years as director of the school. She was also a member of the Wisconsin Painters & Sculptors.

Summers provided Ulbricht time to paint, and she was at her most prolific in the 1920s and 1930s. Ulbricht's paintings reflected a serenity that masked the anxieties present in America during that time. Broad areas of light color and relaxed poses were her hallmark. During the Depression, in 1935, Ulbricht wrote a proposal for the WPA's Milwaukee Handicraft Project to help put hundreds of unskilled women to work creating well designed useful articles. When the proposal was approved Ulbricht was appointed Art Director and General Supervisor. The project ended in 1943.

Ulbricht is remembered as a pioneer in Wisconsin art. Her students included Ruth Grotenrath, Albert Sessler, Robert Schellin and Santos Zingale. Ulbricht taught printmaking in her own studio while continuing her own work. She was a tireless teacher who had a deep impact on Wisconsin art, particularly in bringing an arts and crafts influence to the lives of the general population.

SOURCES AND BIOGRAPHICAL EXCERPTS:

Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.- 

AskART - 

MOWA -The Museum of Wisconsin Art  - 

Photo: Elsa Ulbricht (left) and Mrs. J. Martin Klotsche (right)