Goldsmith, Elsa M. (1920-2005) Small Archive of Original Illustrations & Designs.
Consisting of three original camera-ready watercolor illustrations for the dust jackets of Eva Bruce's Call her Rosie, New York: Ives Washburn,1942 (one watercolor sketch and the finished piece); Jack Iams's Prophet by Experience, New York: William Morrow, 1943; Dahris Martin's I Know Tunisia, New York: Ives Washburn, 1943; [and] Erna Barschak's My American Adventure, New York: Ives Washburn, 1945; [together with] tempera on board for an unidentified frozen vegetable package; six original drawings of glass and ceramic ware designed for the Belle Kogan design firm in the 1940s; a blueprint for a flashlight hand mirror designed by Goldsmith for Belle Kogan and manufactured by the Rosenbaum Glass Co. in 1946; a photograph of a ceramic sculpture; [and] four other miscellaneous sketches from the same period, sizes vary; approximately eighteen pieces, most signed.
Goldsmith contributed the Joan of Arc portrait to the Sister Chapel project. "The Sister Chapel (1974-78) was an important collaborative installation that materialized at the height of the women's art movement. Conceived as a nonhierarchical, secular commemoration of female role models, The Sister Chapel consisted of an eighteen-foot abstract ceiling that hung above a circular arrangement of eleven monumental canvases, each depicting the standing figure of a heroic woman." It was created by a collaborative group of women artists in 1974. As a feminist conscious-raising experience, this project sought to create an alternative to the patriarchy. It is on display at Rowan University in Glassboro, New Jersey. (cf. Andrew D. Hottle's The Art of the Sister Chapel, New York: Routledge, 2016.)
Russian-born industrial designer Belle Kogan (1902-2000) is considered the Godmother of Industrial Design and one of the founders of the profession itself. She founded her eponymous design studio in New York after attending Pratt, the Art Students League of Manhattan, RISD (where she studied silver design), and NYU. She employed female designers like Goldsmith at her firm throughout its history from 1932 through 1970.
