Edith Kramer Papers
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Creator
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Language of Materials
Abstract
Edith Kramer (1916-2014) was an Austrian artist, author, teacher, and art therapist. She emigrated to the United States in 1938 and in the following decades worked with children as an art teacher and art therapist in a variety of institutions. Kramer joined the faculty of New York University in 1973 in order to help develop an art therapy graduate program. The collection documents her academic career with her publications, lecture notes, and syllabi; her work as an art therapist with patient notes and artwork created by patients; and her career as a working artist with artworks created by Kramer throughout her life.
Biographical Note
Edith Kramer was born in 1916 in Vienna, Austria. At the age of 13, she began studying art under the tutelage of Friedl Dicker-Brandeis, an artist who worked within the Bauhaus movement. Dicker-Brandeis moved to Prague in 1934, and Kramer traveled there with her. While in Prague both women taught art to the children of families who had fled Nazi Germany. Kramer credited this formative experience with inspiring her interest in art therapy. Kramer grew up in a family with strong interests in Freudian psychoanalysis, and neo-Freudian concepts regarding attachment, aggression, and libidinal impulses later influenced her views on art therapy.
In 1938 Kramer fled Austria and arrived in New York City as a refugee. In 1938 she began teaching art and shop classes at the Little Red School House in Greenwich Village and she later went on to work in a machine shop during World War II.
In 1950 she was appointed art therapist at the Wiltwyck School for Boys in Esopus, New York. This appointment marked her first formal position as an art therapist. Her experiences at Wiltwyck inspired her seminal book, Art Therapy in a Children's Community, published in 1958. Over the next decades she made a name for herself as one of the pioneers of art therapy and worked to develop art therapy programs in a number of children's institutions including the Leak and Watts Children's Home, the Turtle Bay Music School, the Guild School of the Jewish Guild for the Blind, and the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Department of Child Psychiatry. These experiences informed her 1971 work, Art Therapy with Children.
In 1971 Kramer was part of the team that founded an art therapy program at George Washington University. She then came to New York University in 1973 to create a graduate program in art therapy at the School of Education, Health, Nursing, and the Arts Professions (now the Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development). By 1976, the program had obtained approval from the New York State Department of Education, and in 1979 it was one of the first programs to receive approval from the American Art Therapy Association.
Kramer was also an artist during her time in academia; she worked part-time as a professor and continued as a working artist. Kramer worked as a painter, sculptor, printmaker, mosaicist, and collage-maker and her works include landscapes, industrial paintings, sketches, etchings, and a number of sculptures. A mosaic she created for the Metropolitan Transit Authority may be found in the Spring Street A/C/E subway stop.
Kramer retired from NYU in 2005. She continued to lecture and make art until her death in 2014 at the age of 97.
Arrangement
The collection is arranged into 5 series. Series I is grouped by topic or document type and arranged chronologically within those groupings. Series II is organized by document type. Series III is organized by correspondent and document type. Series IV is organized by document type. Series V is arranged into two sub-series: Sub-Series V.A is grouped by medium and then arranged chronologically. Sub-Series V.B has not been arranged by an archivist.
Series I: Publications and Professional Papers, 1898-2005
Series II: Photographs and Slides
Series III: Personal Papers
Series IV: Audiovisual Materials
Series V: Artwork, 1937-2000
Sub-series V.A: Artwork by Edith Kramer, 1937-1993
Sub-series V.B: Artwork Created During Art Therapy, 1951-2000
Scope and Contents
This collection reflects Edith Kramer's work as an artist, art therapist, and teacher. She began making art as a child and this collection includes artworks she created throughout her life. The majority of her artworks in the collection are pencil and ink drawings, but she worked in many media including sculpture, mosaic, collage, oil and watercolor paints, and printmaking, all of which are also represented in this collection. Kramer created mosaic murals for two New York City subway stations, Spring Street and Union Square, and this collection includes proposals and planning documents related to these two murals as well as proposals for others subway station murals that were never made. The collection also includes drawings of subway stations, trains, and riders. In addition to original artworks, there are slides and photographs of many of her pieces. The collection also includes files related to Friedl Dicker-Brandeis, Kramer's childhood art teacher and mentor; personal correspondence; and date books.
This collection documents Kramer's work as a practicing art therapist, most notably her work at Wiltwyck School for Boys, a residential treatment facility in Esopus, New York. Kramer's notes about patients at Wilkwyck, artwork created by these patients in the course of art therapy, and example artworks created by Kramer are all included, as are documents related to and drafts of her 1958 book, Art therapy in a children's community: a study of the function of art therapy in the treatment program of Wiltwyck School for Boys. Slides and photographs also document patient artwork.
Kramer's work as an academic is documented in scholarly publications, including journal articles and her 1971 book, Art as Therapy with Children. The collection also includes syllabi, lecture notes and recordings, and a program prospectus for the graduate program in art therapy at New York University.
Subjects
Genres
Conditions Governing Access
Sketchbooks in box 19 contain personal health information (PHI) and are restricted. All other materials are open without restrictions. University Archives staff will review all requested material for PHI before providing access.
Use Restrictions
Any rights (including copyright and related rights to publicity and privacy) held by the creator are maintained by New York University. Permission to publish or reproduce materials in this collection must be secured from New York University Archives, (212) 998-2646, university-archives@nyu.edu.
Unless previously published, all items not created by Edith Kramer are restricted for publication, exhibition, or loan until 2099 without explicit permission of the creator.
Preferred Citation
Published citations should take the following form:
Identification of the item, date (if known); Edith Kramer Papers; MC 215; box number; folder number; New York University Archives.
Source of acquisition
The collection was donated to the University Archives by David Henley in 2011.
Custodial History
As of October, 2023 10 items are missing: 5 drawings by Edith Kramer and 5 artworks by her patients. Missing items are identified at the file level.
Audiovisual Access Policies and Procedures
Audiovisual materials have not been preserved and may not be available to researchers. Materials not yet digitized will need to have access copies made before they can be used. To request an access copy, or if you are unsure if an item has been digitized, please contact [repository name, special.collections@nyu.edu, 212-998-2596] with the collection name, collection number, and a description of the item(s) requested. A staff member will respond to you with further information.
About this Guide
Processing Information
This collection was processed by several University Archives staff members over a period of six years. An organizational structure for the collection was devised based on the first three accessions of material (received in 2010 and 2011). Additional accessions were added to the appropriate series as they were received. The biographical note was written by David Henley, long-time collaborator of Kramer's and executor of her estate.
Artworks contained within the collection are referred to by their formal titles when those titles are known. Many of the artworks contained within the collection--both works completed by Kramer and by her patients--are not titled. These works have been asigned titles which are displayed in brackets.
In August 2017, 14 items were prepared to be moved to offsite art storage in September 2017. In 2018 an accretion of materials donated by 2011 was incorporated into the collection as a new series.
In 2019, materials in Subseries V.B received conservation treatment. This treatment involved covering personal health information in ways that can be reversed after the collection is fully open.
In 2023, top container and location information was added or updated for materials in Series V. At the same time, file titles were edited to be more descriptive and accession 11-019 was incorporated into the existing file list.