DONALD ELDER

WEBSITE: DONALDELDER.COM

INSTAGRAM: DONALDELDERSTUDIO

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Biography

Donald Elder studied at the Art Students’ League, the New York Academy of Art, at Pratt and abroad in Italy. He was awarded the Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant and worked in Paris on an extended Edward G. McDowell Grant. In galleries in New York, Luxembourg and Switzerland, Elder’s work is held in public and private collections throughout the U.S. and in Europe.

After moving from New York to Woodstock in the late 1990s, his emphasis became abstract landscape, but he continued to paint abstracts. Whether abstract or abstract landscape, his work is tactile and absorbing, both styles offering unconventional gesture, and sophisticated tensions between the hard-edged and the romantic.

Elder is profoundly influenced by nature; even his entirely abstract works take their visual cue from actual forms in nature, with phenomenon, texture, color and juxtapositions becoming abstracted and impressionistic through shifts in perspective.

He’s made Woodstock his home for decades, drawing inspiration from majestic mountains and wild forests of the Hudson Valley and the gardens he’s created around his home and studio. Elder has been represented for three decades by Elena Zang Gallery in Shady, NY.

Woodstock

My partner and I visited Woodstock and the surrounding area on many occasions to visit friends.

When the time came and we decided to purchase a weekend home this area was the most logical place to look.We loved the Hudson Valley, it’s unique character, it’s history of art, it’s beauty, and the people.Thus it became our sense of place. It has remained my home and creative place for many years now.