Elizabeth Olds (1896–1991) was among the most innovative American printmakers of the twentieth century and a pioneering figure in the development of screenprinting as a fine art. A painter, muralist, and printmaker, she played a central role in the Graphic Arts Division of the WPA Federal Art Project, helping transform the commercial process of silkscreen into one of the defining artistic mediums of the American modernist era.
Born in Minneapolis, Minnesota, Olds studied at the University of Minnesota, the Minneapolis School of Art, the Art Students League of New York, and privately with George Luks. In 1926 she became the first woman to receive a Guggenheim Fellowship in painting, allowing her to travel and study in Europe, where exposure to modernist movements broadened her artistic vision while reinforcing her commitment to depicting everyday life with clarity and vigor.
Returning to the United States during the Depression, Olds spent several years in the Midwest, producing an acclaimed series of lithographs documenting the Omaha stockyards and industrial labor. These works established her reputation for combining social observation with dynamic composition and won several national awards. In 1934 she joined the Public Works of Art Project in Omaha before moving to New York to work in the Graphic Arts Division of the Federal Art Project.
Working alongside Anthony Velonis, Louis Lozowick, Harry Gottlieb, Hyman Warsager, Ruth Chaney, Eugene Morley, and other leading WPA printmakers, Olds became one of the earliest artists to recognize the creative potential of screenprinting. She believed deeply in democratic access to art and argued that original prints could reach audiences far beyond the traditional collector. In her influential 1936 essay "Prints for Mass Production," she advocated the creation of affordable editions that could bring contemporary art into everyday American life. Portable, economical, and ideally suited to vibrant color, the silkscreen process became for Olds both an artistic medium and a social instrument.
Olds's prints celebrate the vitality of American life during the Depression and wartime years. Whether depicting factory workers, amusement parks, city streets, circuses, sporting events, or neighborhood gatherings, her compositions combine bold graphic design with expressive color and an unmistakable sense of movement. Rather than emphasizing hardship alone, her work conveys resilience, humor, and the energy of ordinary people, qualities that distinguish her as one of the most engaging visual chroniclers of the New Deal era.
Following the Federal Art Project, Olds continued to paint, print, illustrate children's books, and teach, remaining active well into her later years. Today, her work is recognized as a landmark in the history of American printmaking and in the evolution of screenprinting as a respected fine-art medium.
Her work is included in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern Art, the Brooklyn Museum, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the National Gallery of Art, the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the Library of Congress, the New York Public Library, the Baltimore Museum of Art, the Seattle Art Museum, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, and numerous other public institutions.
