FREDERICKS, ELSA

Elsa Fredericks was from Nova Scotia but lived and exhibited in the provinces of New Brunswick, Manitoba and Ontario. She studied with Molly Lamb Bobak, Fred Ross and Toni Onley at the University of New Brunswick; Christopher Pratt at Mount Allison University; James Pinto of the Instituto Allende Mexico and at Finch College of New York in San Marino and Florence Italy. She taught with the Peel Board of Education, Mississauga.
There are two types of naive painters, the trained and the untrained and Elsa was well trained. Not unlike the work of popular painters Maud Lewis and Henri Rousseau, her work is characterized by a refreshing innocence and use of bright colours with a child like perspective. Elsa liked painting images with people doing everyday activities that she enjoyed herself.
Molly Lamb Bobak told her to “look beyond the real to the unreal”. She took this to mean that she should use her imagination at will. Elsa’s paintings are a testimony to her joy in living and painting. Her paintings hang in private and corporate collections across Canada, and the United States including Chicago, Louisiana, Massachusetts, New Hampshire and New York City. Elsa has been represented by John A. Libby since 1991.