Elizabeth Olds Papers
name: label: Collection Creator
content: Olds, Elizabeth, 1896-1991
setName: label: See more items in
content: Elizabeth Olds papers
physdesc: label: Extent
content: 1.3 Linear Feet (Box 1-2, OV3-7)
unitdate: label: Date
content: circa 1900-1976
dataSource: label: Archival Repository
content: Archives of American Art
identifier: label: Identifier
content: AAA.oldseliz, Series 1
objectType: label: Type
content: Archival materials
scopecontent: label: Scope and Contents
content: Biographical material include awards and resumes, gift acknowledgements, and receipts for paintings sold. Early correspondence focuses on Olds's painting and printmaking career and includes letters from the Federal Works Agency, Musuem of Modern Art, the Print Club, and Elihu Root. Of note is a letter from Ezra Pound in which he writes about the work and temperment of Constantin Brancusi and Fernand Leger, and recommends that Olds talk to Ernest Hemingway about Joan Miro. Pound also writes about the work of European old master painters and the art museums of Italy, France and England. Later correspondence concerns Olds's career in publishing and contains letters from the Houghton Mifflin Company and clippings from around the United States with reviews of her books.

Three typescripts of lecutes are on printmaking and are entitled "The Graphic Arts as a Democratic Medium," "What is a Silk Screen?," and "Mass Production of Prints."

Photographs are of Elizabeth Olds as a child, with family members, painting in the studio of Edward Root at Hamilton College and with George Luks. Of note is a portrait of Olds by Berenice Abbott. Also found are photographs of works of art, many of which are labeled.

Printed materials include books by Olds, clippings, exhibition announcements and catalogs, and publishing related press releases and catalogs. Found are copies of The Big Fire (in English and Korean), and Deep Treasure, Feather Mountain, Little Una, Plop Plop Ploppie. 

Most sketches by Elizabeth Olds are in pencil, pen, and charcoal but also include painted preliminary sketches that became prints. Early sketches were done in Paris in 1925-1926. Found are portrait and group studies, figure drawings, salmon fishing scenes, and of towns and people in Guatemala and Mexico. 

Slides are of works of art.