Elizabeth H. Frisch
Elizabeth Holmes Frisch (1910–1980) was an American painter and art educator from Bellingham, Washington. She worked as a professor of art at Wellesley College for most of her career and her paintings were exhibited regionally in New England during her lifetime.
Biography
Elizabeth Frisch was born in 1910 in Bellingham, Washington. She lived in Boston, New York, and Washington D.C. at various times before settling in New England. She received education at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, the Academie Julien in Paris, and the Art Students’ League in New York City. She served as assistant to mural painter Griffith Bailey Coale and taught art at the Thomas School in Rowayton, Connecticut during the 1930s.
Elizabeth was offered a job as an art professor at Wellesley College and settled in Natick, Massachusetts around 1939. She held this position at Wellesley until her retirement in 1975. Elizabeth was married to an Austrian opera singer who fled Nazi Europe for the United States named Robert G. Frisch. She retired to Stonington, Connecticut around 1975.[1][2]
Art
In addition to teaching art at Wellesley, Elizabeth Frisch was a prolific painter herself. She had a studio on campus for instruction and another at her home in Natick. She found most of her success as an artist in the 1950s and 1960s, when she had her solo exhibitions and participated in multiple group exhibitions. Her first solo exhibition was in 1953 at the Davis Museum at Wellesley College. The same year, she took a sabbatical and received a Ford Foundation Fund for the Advancement of Education fellowship to travel to study art in person. She used this to make trips to museums in New York City and Washington D.C. She was a member of the Boston Arts Society, the Boston Independents, the Wellesley Society of Artists, and the Mystic Art Association. She exhibited widely in group shows throughout her career, including regularly at the annual Boston Arts Festival.[3]
Her artistic style was experimental and modernist. Her work falls within the style of geometric abstraction that was popularly during the 1940s-1950s. Elizabeth's subject matter was usually still lives, cityscapes, or landscapes; although she did paint a few known figural works as well.[4]
Two of her paintings are in the collection of the Davis Museum at Wellesley College.[5]
References
- ↑ "Mrs. Frisch's Art Shows Variety of Mood, Color". Wellesley College News. November 8, 1962. p. 1.
- ↑ Mathewson, Gee Gee (May 26, 1949). "Professor Here Displays Works in Art Exhibit". Wellesley College News. pp. 5–11.
- ↑ Lieder, Connie (November 19, 1953). "Mrs. Frisch to Use Ford Grant to Explore Museums, Media". Wellesley College News. p. 3.
- ↑ "American Artist Elizabeth Holmes Frisch (1910-1980) – 21st Century Antiques". www.21centuryantiques.com. Retrieved 2025-12-13.
- ↑ "Works – Elizabeth Holmes Frisch". Davis Museum. Retrieved 2025-12-14 – via eMuseum.
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