Zulma Steele: Artist/Craftswoman

Zulma Steele (1881–1979) was one of the pioneering women of the Arts and Crafts Movement and Modernism in New York. American arts journalist for the New York Times Grace Glueck noted that Steele was a “progressive-minded artist and artisan whose work was considered avant-garde.” In 1903 she was one of the first residents of Ralph Radcliffe Whitehead’s fledgling arts and crafts colony. Her designs of nature studies for what became iconic patterned-painted panels were set into larger Mission-style furniture pieces. She was also a painter, printer and ceramist. She married a farmer, Nielson Parker, in 1926. After he died in 1928, Steele traveled extensively in Europe, Haiti, and the Bahamas. She returned to upstate New York and died in New Jersey at 98 years of age. A retrospective exhibition, Zulma Steele: Artist/Craftswoman, was held in 2020 at the Kleinert/James Center for the Arts of the Woodstock Byrdcliffe Guild. The catalog is 104 pages and has a trim size of 8 ½ by 10 inches. This softcover book features a foreword by Henry T. Ford, with essays by Tom Wolf, Derin Tanyol and Bruce Weber. The book includes 101 color and 23 black-and-white illustrations. Published in 2020 by the Woodstock Byrdcliffe Guild.