Edna Reindel

Edna Reindel (February 19, 1894 – April 3, 1990) was a subtle Surrealist and American Regionalist painter, printmaker, illustrator, sculptor, muralist, and teacher active from the 1920s to the 1960s. She is best known for her work in large-scale murals, New England landscapes, and later for her commissioned work of women workers in WWII shipyard and aircraft industries as published in Life magazine in 1944.

Personal life and education Born in Detroit, Michigan, Edna Reindel began her formal artistic studies in 1918 at the Detroit School of Design. The next year, she moved to New York where she attended Brooklyn's Pratt Institute until her graduation in 1923. Edna Reindel died in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan in 1990 at age 96.

Artistic career After emerging from the Pratt Institute, Edna Reindel illustrated children's books and book jackets (1926). Between 1933 and 1937, she created at least five different still-life covers for Conde Nast's House and Garden magazine. Most of these were very sensual depictions of flowers (probably influenced by Georgia O'Keeffe) in a style somewhere between surrealistic and hyper-realistic. The mural depicts Whitney's 1791 experiments and demonstration of the cotton gin in Swainsboro, Georgia.

Reindel had work featured in exhibits in California between 1938 and 1953; during this time, she also painted portraits of stars of motion pictures. In 1939, her work Contemplation was purchased by the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

In 1944, Life magazine published pieces from a series they commissioned from Reindel in 1943, entitled Women at War. These images were meant to display the experiences of working women supporting the Allied war effort. Previously in 1937, Life magazine had included a featured piece on Reindel's Martha's Vineyard pieces including The Netmenders. In the 1943 series, with pieces like Calship Worker, Wilmington, California (1943), Reindel uniquely captured women workers in war time – from the lens of a working woman artist. LIFE published nine paintings developed from observations of women workers at and sketches of the Lockheed Air Craft Factory in Los Angeles. Four of these pieces are in the National Museum of Women in the Arts permanent collection.

Throughout her career, Reindel also illustrated, sketched, created collages, and developed restoration skills. Indeed, she applied her restoration skills in work for the heiress, art collector and philanthropist Doris Duke during the 1950s and 1960s.