Elsie Bates Freund

born Jan. 23, 1912

Elsie Bates Freund (aka Elsa Freund for ceramic/jewelry work)

Elsie was born January 12, 1912 in southwestern 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 in Girard, Kansas and Branson, Missouri.Following high school, Elsie taught for one year in remote country schools. 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.During the Depression, Elsie returned to Branson where she made jewelry from walnut shells and plaster trophies used for fish caught in the area.Elsie Bates met Louis in 1936 while she was living in Branson and working at the Bates Gift Shop. When Louis was given an artist-in-residence post at Hendrix College in Conway, he and Elsie married and took up residence in Eureka Springs. Their home was to serve as a summer art school for the next decade.In the early 1940s the couple traveled east. While Louis studied art history at Princeton, Elsie learned the rudiments of weaving on a four-harness loom. 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 were to remain 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.By the early 1990s, Elsie was recognized as a pioneer of the studio art jewelry movement.Louis and Elsie championed each other's work and were thrilled whenever their work was in a new show. For their long and distinguished careers in Arkansas, Elsie and Louis can rightly be called the founders of the visual arts in this state as well as pioneers in American art.Source: exhibition catalogue Louis and Elsie Freund: A Lifetime CreatingElsie Freund passed away Sunday, June 24, 2001