Elsie Z. Wilde (1898-1991) Artist

Elsie Wilde had one of those wonderful idyllic lives straight out of a 1950s television show. Where women trained as artists, did New York fashion illustrations for a living until getting married, then moved to the suburbs and had enough wealth to spend the hot months up north and the cooler months down south.

Ms. Wilde was born in Paterson, NJ, had a studio in Glen Rock, NJ; summered in Rockport, and wintered in Florida. She painted portraits, landscapes and flowers; exhibited in important shows, i.e.; Ridgewood Art Association, Ridgewood, NJ, and won various awards, including the Rockport Art Association “most outstanding work in any medium by a new member from 1951 to 1953.”

She studied at the Art Students League and was a graduate of Parsons School of Fine and Applied Art. She did fashion work in New York and later studied with George Pearce Ennis, Jon Corbino, Luis Bosa, Junius Allen, as well as other eminent artists.

The two examples here: “Bathrobe on the Balcony” and the “The 1950s Florida Beach” shows off her commercial illustrative brushstroke that was so much a part of New York fashion background. She knew how to layer color, create shadows and crop painting to capture the composition.

On occasion her paintings and watercolors still show up at auction houses or ebay. She had a number of solo shows. Her studio was located at 51 Abbington Terrace, Glen Rock, New Jersey, a tree lined upscale neighborhood. And her publicity photo published in the Rockport Art Association Guide from 1956 shows her holding her brushes and wearing a painter’s smock, as she stares into the camera lens looking totally professional. She knew fashion and art.

Taken in part from "Artists of the Rockport Art Association - Thirty-Fifth Anniversary Edition"(1956)

“The 1950s Florida Beach”

Detail with Signature on lower Right

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©2023. Waller-Yoblonsky Fine Art is a research collaborative, working to track artists that got lost and overlooked due to time, changing styles, race, gender and/or sexual orientation. Our frequent blogs highlight artists and art movements that need renewed attention with improved information for the researcher and art collectors. The photos and blog was created by Mr. Waller and all written materials were obtained by the Fair Use Section 107, of The Copyright Act. #waller-yoblonskyblogspot #walleryoblonskyblogspot #ElsieWilde #ElsieZWilde #newjerseyartists

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