Elsie Driggs
Elsie Driggs, 1927 / Elsa Schmidt Neumann, photographer. Elsie Driggs papers, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Elsie Driggs (1898-1992) was the only woman artist who participated in the Precisionist movement in American art.
The movement focused on the machine age, with industrial images depicted in geometrically simplified compositions. Her abstract rendition of the Queensborough Bridge, painted in 1927, exemplifies the subject matter and style associated with this 1920s art movement.
“Queensborough Bridge,” by Elsie Driggs (1898 -1992), 1927.
Courtesy, Montclair Art Museum
www.montclair-art.com/collections/am_paint/am_paint_01.htm;
image acquired Jan. 2003
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References:
Kimmerle, Constance. 2008. Elsie Driggs: the quick and the classical : [exhibition, James A. Michener Art Museum, January 19-April 13, 2008]. Bucks County, Penn: James A. Michener Art Museum. http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/496910299
Burstyn, Joan N. 1990. “Elsie Driggs”. Past and Promise, Lives of New Jersey Women. http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/54794986
Questions to Explore
What was the precisionist movement in American Art? Did it accomplish anything and what was its purpose?
What are some of the subjects and purpose of Drigg’s art works?
Additional Resources
Robinson Mary B and Douglass College. 1982. Modern Masters : Women of the First Generation : Dorothy Dehner Sari Dienes Elsie Driggs Perle Fine Dorothea Greenbaum Dorothy Hood Buffie Johnson Lois Jones Esphyr Slobodkina Jane Teller : [Exhibition] December 1-21 1982. New Brunswick N.J: Rutgers the State University of New Jersey.https://www.worldcat.org/title/15388414
Folk Thomas New Jersey State Museum and Phillips Collection. 1990. Elsie Driggs : A Woman of Genius. Trenton: New Jersey State Museum.https://www.worldcat.org/title/23369864