The Old Print Shop

Eliza Draper Gardiner

1871-1955

Eliza Draper Gardiner, a painter, printmaker and educator, was born on October 29, 1871 in Cranston, Rhode Island.  She studied at the Rhode Island School of Design before traveling to Europe, where she learned printmaking under the tutelage of Charles H. Woodbury. Initially working in black and white, Gardiner found inspiration in the color woodcuts of Arthur Wesley Dow and swiftly became known as a color printmaker. She largely worked in the woodblock and linocut mediums, however she did produce a handful of color lithographs in the 1930s.  Her work was exhibited extensively in the 1920s and 30s, and she had her first solo exhibition in 1922 at Goodspeed’s Book Shop in Boston. In addition to producing and selling art, Gardiner also served as an art teacher at the Rhode Island School of Design for three decades.

Gardiner was a member of the Massachusetts Graphic Arts group, Philadelphia Woodcut Society, Provincetown Printmakers, American Color Print Society, Provincetown Art Association, and the Print Makers Society of California.

Her work is in many museums around the world, including RISD Museum, RI; Worcester Art Museum, MA; Indianapolis Museum of Art, IN; National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C.; and the Detroit Institute of Art, MI.

A good book on the artist was published in 1987 by the Newport Art Museum entitled "Eliza Drapper Gardiner: Master of the Color Woodblock." 

 

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