Elsie Freund

Elsie Bates Freund was born near Mincy, Missouri, on January 12, 1912. She was of Cherokee heritage. 

Elsie developed an interest in art beginning at age five. For school, she attended a one-room schoolhouse in Taney County. When she was a teenager, she boarded with a family in Gerard, Kansas, so she could attend high school. Her family later moved to Branson, Missouri, and Elsie graduated from high school there in 1929. After graduation, Elsie taught in a one-room schoolhouse for a year. She then studied illustration, painting, design and drawing at the Kansas City Art Institute from 1930 to 1932. After her studies there, she returned to Branson and opened a gift shop. There she sold her jewelry made from walnut shells and plaster models of fish.

Elsie met H. Louis Freund, an artist, in 1936, and they married on July 6, 1939. In 1941, Elsie and H. Louis Freund founded the Art School of the Ozarks in Eureka Springs, Arkansas, and had a major role in bringing the arts there. At their school, which was inside Hatchet Hall, the former home of temperance advocate Carrie Nation, H. Louis taught painting and Elsie taught design and weaving. They ran the school until 1951.

Elsie and her husband also taught art at colleges in Arkansas and Florida. H. Louis Freund was appointed artist in residence of the art department at Hendrix College, in Conway, Arkansas, in 1938, and was the head of the art department from 1941 to 1946. Elsie was an instructor at the college as well, from 1941 to 1946. In 1949, Elsie and H. Louis moved to DeLand, Florida, where they taught at Stetson University. Elsie was an instructor there from 1949 to 1951. While they were teaching in Florida, they lived there in the winter, and went back to Eureka Springs for the summers.

In 1948, Elsie studied ceramics at the Wichita Art Association. At this time, she began to develop her style of making jewelry made out of ceramics and metal, for which she became well known. H. Louis named her work "Elsaramics," but Elsie shortened it to "Elsa," which was marked on the jewelry. Her watercolors were signed "Elsie." In 1957, a national company, America House in New York City, began carrying Elsie’s jewelry. This partnership continued until 1964, when Freund discontinued the line. 

Elsie is best known for her jewelry designs, but she also did work in textiles, weaving, painting, lithography and ceramics. Elsie also worked in fabric design; she revived an ancient East Indian method of sewed-in dye. In 1953, she was accepted into the  National Watercolor Society. Elsie and her husband were also founding members of the Florida Craftsmen group.

Elsie Freund died on June 14, 2001.