Elfriede Abbe (1919-2012) American, Two (2) Color Woodcuts. Titles: "Weathercock" and "Barn Swallows." Signed, titled, and numbered in pencil. 

Overall: (each) 18 X 14 in. 

Sight: (each) 10 3/4 X 8 3/4 in. 

#3880, 3881 . 

Elfriede Martha Abbe was born February 6th, 1919 in Washington D.C. Elfriede became an internationally recognized sculptor, graphic artist, and botanical illustrator. She received her B.F.A. degree from the College of Architecture at Cornell University in 1940. She studied sculpture under H.P. Camden and Brenda Putnam, developing a distinctive abstract style, and took further classes at Syracuse University. From 1942 until her retirement in 1974 Abbe was an illustrator at Cornell University, living and working in Ithaca, New York. Her wood and bronze sculptures are included in the permanent collections of the Bennington Museum, Carnegie Mellon University, McGill University in Montreal, the New York Botanical Garden, the Duke August Library in West Germany, and the College of the Atlantic in Bar Harbor, Maine. Her most famous work, the sculpture “The Hunter,” was exhibited at the 1939 New York World’s Fair. Her graphics and wood etchings were considered some of the finest examples of her generation, included in renowned national and international collections including the Thomas J. Watson Library at Metropolitan Museum of Art, the New York Public Library, and the Royal Botanical Garden in Edinburgh, Scotland. She was awarded a Tiffany Fellowship, a Roy A. Hunt Foundation Grant, and Gold Medals from the National Arts Club, Pen and Brush, and several others. After her retirement she moved to Manchester, Vermont, where she became a member of the National Sculpture Society and National Arts Club, as well as of the Southern Vermont Arts Center. The Center exhibited many of her later works, including limited edition book designs. In 1997 Abbe established the Dauer Memorial Foundation in memory of her mother Frieda Dauer Abbe and her grandfather, Conrad Dauer, to finance memorial concerts at the Herzog August Bibliothek in Wolfenbüttel, Germany. She passed away on Monday, December 31st, 2012.