Edith Kramer

Edith Kramer
Self-portrait, 2006
Born	August 29, 1916 Vienna, Austria
Died	February 22, 2014(2014-02-22) (aged 97) Austria
Nationality	Austrian
Known for	Painting Art therapy
Movement	Social realism
Website
www.edithkramer.com

Edith Kramer (1916 – 2014) was an Austrian social realist painter, a follower of psychoanalytic theory and an art therapy pioneer.^[1][2]

Life and work

Kramer was born in Vienna, Austria-Hungary in 1916. At age 13 Kramer began art lessons with Friedl Dicker. Dicker was associated with the Bauhaus in Weimer Germany, and was an artist and art teacher of note. Kramer studied drawing, sculpture and painting, and was influenced by the method for teaching art developed by Bauhaus artist Johannes Itten. It was in 1934 after Kramer graduated from Realgymnasium that she, then 18, followed Dicker to Prague to continue to study under her. It was during this time in Prague that Kramer worked with Dicker in helping children whose parents were political refugees.

Kramer arrived in the America in 1938 as a refugee, In New York City, she worked for three years teaching sculpture at the Little Red School House. During World War II Kramer worked at a machine shop in the Soho district of New York. She stayed after her shift to draw the other workers in their industrial setting. These works were rendered in the social realist style. In 1947 Kramer visited some of the earliest artworks known to man, the caves at Lascaux. Kramer spoke of these cave paintings as an example of the universal language of art.

At the age of 33 she returned to New York City, with hopes of making a living as an artist. Raised in a family which was interested in psychoanalytic theory, Kramer herself became a follower of Sigmund Freud. Kramer especially believed in the concept of sublimation. Freudian theory describes sublimation as a process in which primitive urges coming from the id are transformed into socially productive activities that lead to gratification of the original urge. Kramer's training was in art, art education and psychoanalytically informed psychotherapy. Still in her 33rd year, Kramer was offered a job at Wiltwyck School for Boys. This job was arranged for her by psychoanalyst Dr. Viola Bernard, who gave Kramer the title, "Art Therapist." It was here that Kramer worked with disturbed boys, ages 8 through 13, for the following seven years.^[3]

Though Kramer and her fellow pioneer of American art therapy, Margaret Naumburg, had a similar goal of combining art and psychology, their beliefs took a different path where Kramer began to declare that it was art as therapy, and Naumburg instead promoted art in therapy.

Kramer's life work was spent with children and adolescents that were often unable to explain their feelings through the use of words. In 1958 Kramer published Art Therapy in a Children's Community. Kramer also worked at Jacobi Hospital in their child psychiatric ward for 13 years. In 1971 Kramer published Art as Therapy with Children. Kramer wrote in her books of her experiences with her clients. Kramer worked for 14 years at the Jewish Guild for the Blind. In 1976 Kramer, with the help of Dr. Laurie Wilson, founded the graduate program in Art Therapy at New York University. While at NYU, Kramer came up with an important method of the program and called it, “the Art Therapist third hand intervention.” This concept called for the versatility of the art therapist. "The third hand can be summed up as the art therapist's ability to facilitate a person's artistic process (such as strategically helping the individual mix paints for a desired color or intervening at critical moments during art making)".^[2] It is important to note that Kramer believed that product was as important as process in Art Therapy. She felt denying the client the gratification of the end product was robbing them. Kramer believed that Art Therapy should fall more in the humanities area than psychology.^[4]

When in active practice, Kramer maintained a studio where she painted, etched, and sculpted, specializing in art therapy with children and adolescents.

Edith Kramer became a U.S. citizen in 1944. Kramer received an honorary doctorate in 1996 from Norwich University in Northfield, Vermont. She was an Adjunct Professor of Art Therapy in New York University's Graduate Art Therapy Program from 1973 to 2005 and was an Assistant Professor in the Graduate Art Therapy Program at The George Washington University in Washington, D. C. .^[5] The American Art Therapy Association gave her the award of "Honorary Life Member,” a mark of highest esteem.^[6]

Kramer eventually returned to her home in Austria she died in 2014.^[2]

In 2014, Kramer was posthumously awarded the inaugural Myra Levick Award for Excellence in Art Therapy. The award was given "[f]or her role as an artist and art therapist whose ability to communicate with troubled children through art is a treasured legacy of a pioneer in our field. Her idea of art as therapy with her emphasis on the creative process itself as healing is a major contribution to art therapy theory".^[7]

Family

Edith Kramer was a niece of Theodor Kramer (1897–1958) and Elisabeth Neumann-Viertel (1900–1994).^[8]

References

External links

• Historic and recent photos of Edith Kramer by Herschel J. Stroyman
• Interview with Edith Kramer for Center for Jewish History