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The Elsie Freund Pioneer Woman Footprints on History exhibition will open Friday May 12th 6:00pm at 33 Prospect St, Eureka Springs

Elsie Bates Freund was born January 12, 1912 in southwestern Missouri. Her father was a gamekeeper and stonemason of Irish and Cherokee descent she grew up in this forest setting with a deep love and wonder for all her natural surrounding

She was a painter, jewelry-maker, teacher, fearlessly original thinker, brilliant designer, passionate wife, nature spirit, Ozark native, and adventurer, The Eureka Springs School of the Arts received a grant from the Arkansas Heritage Dept to honor ELSIE BATES FREUND for her contributions not only to Eureka Springs, but also to all of Ar. and the art world. Elsie and Louis Freund left their historic footprints on all of Arkansas, especially Eureka Springs, Little Rock and Conway with their artwork, teaching and work with historic preservation and the natural environment.

The Elsie Freund Pioneer Woman Footprints on History exhibition will open Friday May 12th 6:00pm at 33 Prospect St, Eureka Springs and be open each week end in May. The public is invited

Reception May 12th 6:00pm Curator talk at 6:30.

Robert Ebendorf, internationally know Jeweler, and long time friend and supporter of Elsie and her work, is the curator.

The Freunds started the first art school in Eureka Springs in the early 1940's. The artists and patrons who founded the Eureka Springs School of the Arts feel they are carrying the torch passed on to them by Elsie and Louis Friend

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Robert Ebendorf Curator

I met Elsa in the early 1960’s when I accepted a teaching job at Stetson University, in Deland Fa. I can still recall our first meeting, talking about jewelry, nature and the joy we both shared for cooking. I have never forgotten her quiet style, her warmth and her joy of giving to others. Her gift to me was a way to look at the world around me and discover for myself color, nature and the joy of life –that each day was a gift and to truly partake in each one to its fullest. Elsa’s world was about nature, the arts and the joy each day brings.

The innovative and creative jewelry she has made has greatly enriched our decorative arts history in the area of personal adornment. One could define her art as the spontaneous transformation of a form from nature or an emotion into a piece of jewelry which must not lose its meaning, its function and effect on the body or in space.

Elsa’s creations are magnificently flawless both when they highlight the beauty of geometry and the love of nature. She is like an alchemist as she brings together glass, metal and clay to create her jewelry vision. Her contemporaries in the American Modernist Jewelry Movement of the 1940-1960’s were such artist as Sam Kramer, Irena Bryner, Ed Wiener and Margaret DePatta.

I left Florida in the mid 60’s and it was not until August 25, 1988, over 20 years later, did I reconnect with Elsa by letter. I had matured and had a better view of myself as an active goldsmith. It had become clear to me the major role Elsa Freund had played in the history of jewelry. Following is an excerpt from one of her letters.

Dearest Robert E.

This is a letter I cannot write—because its not words but feelings—senses; eyes to see, fingers to feel, nature to help us to know the joy of it all. You Bob, in your letter put wonderfully” All the little people who lived and worked for so many years in your kiln to bring the wonderful glass creations into being—came out to work one more time, and find the joy, love and friendship. You told me once you never knew what they were up to once you closed the kiln door. They did a wonderful job.” This to me says it a. We have always shared kindred spirits, which I knew from the very beginning of our friendship. You never slept. You were so into finding out what made tings work—you drank it in—so to speak – life was going to be a great experience, (and still is for you) – your talents were abundant and are going strong now in your maturity. I can only watch, help if I can and thank who ever guides us all for your appearance in my life---

As a person, Elsa’s life has been embraced by nature, people around her, mythologies and her loving husband, Louis. In her quiet way she has given much leadership to the arts and to the communities she has lived in over the years.

She truly left “a mark in American Studio Jewelry history”

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Elsie Bates Freund, jewelry-maker, watercolorist, craftsperson, and educator, was born on January 12, 1912, in Mincy, Missouri. Her father was a gamekeeper and stonemason of Irish and Cherokee descent. She was educated in a one-room schoolhouse before attending high school .The only formal art education she had was at the Kansas City Art Institute from 1930-1931. There she studied impressionist-style painting, illustration, design and drawing.

Elsie Bates met and married Louis in 1936 The Freunds purchased Hatchet Hall, the last home of Carry Nation, in Eureka Springs, which served as the site of the Summer School of the Ozarks from 1940 to 1951. Here the Freunds conducted art programs, as well as pursuing their own careers as artists their home was to serve as a summer art school for the next decade.

In the early 1940s while Louis studied art history at Princeton, Elsie learned the rudiments of weaving. When he was drafted, she returned to teaching crafts and design at Hendrix. Along with Native American weaving she studied ceramics and by the end of the 1940s had begun to fashion jewelry by fusing glass on small ceramic forms. Louis suggested her jewelry be called "Elsaramics," but that was too long and Elsie shortened it to "Elsa." From this time forward the name "Elsie" was used for her painting and "Elsa" was used for her crafts.

In the early 1950s the Freunds became artists in residence at Stetson College in Deland, Florida and remained there for eighteen years. By 1953 Elsie decided to "go public" with her pieces. In the same year she was accepted into the American Watercolor Society. Her work was sold in Florida, Branson, and at America House, in New York. This is where a young Robert Ebendorf first came in contact with the Freunds and Elsaramics By the early 1999s; Elsie was recognized as a pioneer of the studio art jewelry movement. Her jewelry hangs as wall art in some of the world’s more respected museums, including Cooper-Hewitt National Museum of Design (New York), Boston Museum of Fine Arts, National Museum of Art (Tokyo), Le Musê des Arts de Coratis (Paris) and The Victoria and Albert Museum (London).

Three of her pieces are currently touring the world in an exhibit called Messengers of Modernism, American Studio Jewelry 1940-1960, along with work by Alexander Caulder and other renowned artists. Pioneers in American art. Elsie Freund passed away Sunday, June 24, 2001 but her memory lives on through her work and the influence she had on students, fellow artist and the State of Arkansas.