EDITH KRAMER (AUSTRIAN-AMERICAN 2016-2014) Park, Lower East Side, 1968 oil on canvas 79.5 x 106.8 cm (31 1/4 x 42 in.) signed and dated lower right
PROVENANCE Acquired directly from the artist`s estate
LOT NOTES Edith Kramer was born in Vienna in 1916, where she started her artistic education with Friedl Dicker. At the age of 18 she followed Dicker to Prague, where the young artist first witnessed the therapeutic powers of art, while helping her teacher during classes for the children of political refugees. Kramer emigrated to the United States 1938 and settled down in New York, where, after the war, she initialed and conducted the first art therapy program at Wiltwyck School for Boys. At first, she accepted the position of an Art Therapist at a school and residential treatment facility for children with behavioral and emotional needs, because at the age of 33, she wanted to make a living as an artist and there simply was no competition for the position, as a very few teachers wanted to work with such students. For the following 43 years she extensively worked in a field of art therapy, publishing numerous books and articles, receiving awards, establishing Graduate Art Therapy Program at the New York University. Today Edith Kramer is considered a pioneer in a field of art therapy.
