“Where Are We Going? What Are We Doing?”: Elma Pratt’s International School of Art, 1928-1967

During the Progressive Era of American history, American women actively participated in their own society and abroad in ways they believed would make the United States and the world more democratic. Florence D. Bartlett, Clara Hoover, and Elma Pratt are three of these American women whose lives intersected and whose legacies are now evidenced through museum and archival collections. These women were explorers of the social and intellectual life of their era; and through the catalysts of art and culture, travel, and education, they enhanced social change.

Nicole Cardassilaris, educator and humanities scholar, draws relationships between the lives of these three women but will focus on a history of Elma Pratt’s life and work. Elma Pratt (1888-1977) educator, collector, artist, and philanthropist spent much of her life organizing and managing her innovative International School of Art in Europe and the Americas. Pratt acquired a notable 2,500-piece collection of international folk art, which she gave to Miami University in Oxford, Ohio in 1970. Nicole recounts Pratt’s life experiences that shaped her into a devoted art educator and promoter of international folk art in the United States and abroad.

Funded by the International Folk Art Foundation