Ellen Nathan Singer

Ellen Nathan Singer received a BFA in acting from Columbia University in 1957.  Soon after, she enrolled at the Art Students League where she was introduced to art of the woodcut.  Drawn to “colors that build like gels on theatre lights” and the simplicity inherent in graphic design, Singer found her craft.  Etching and aquatint came next where Singer found challenge and satisfaction in working the metal plates.  

Ellen Nathan Singer is Vice President of Society of American Graphic Artists (SAGA). In 2014 she was awarded ‘Medal of Honor in Graphics’ from Audubon Artists. Ellen Nathan Singer received a 2016 Fellowship from the New Jersey State Council on the Arts.  Her work is in the collections of The Butler Art Institute, OH;  Bergen Community Museum, NJ;  Howell Road School, NY;  and The Library of Congress, Washington, DC.

“Architectural forms feel so at home to me.  Observation, emotion, the ordering of what I see into reality engrosses me.  I love that I work alone. . .I am my own ‘playwright, director and cast.’ A submerged desire to run away with the circus would account for part of my fascination with making images of it. Standing on my head and playing the harmonica [I really did that on the stage] wasn't enough of an act, but I thrill to the glitter, the glamour, the acrobatic control and the potential danger. The drama of the circus- excitement versus the dark unknown - is a metaphor for me.”