Elaine Rapp

Elaine Rapp (October 27, 1927 – April 15, 2019) was an American sculptor, educator, and art therapist. She was known for her role in the resurgence of direct stone sculpture, and especially for her international stone-carving workshops.

Biography Rapp grew up in the Bronx, married after graduating from high school, and had a daughter, Stephanie. When her daughter was six, Rapp continued her education, and eventually ended up at the Art Students League of New York under the tutelage of sculptors John Hovannes and William Zorach. While studying sculpture, Rapp also began a lifelong interest in humanistic psychology, and after a successful one-woman gallery exhibit, she would devote most of her career to combining the two disciplines.

The exhibit, held in January 1967 at New York’s Bodley Gallery, featured twenty-six of Rapp’s sculptures, in marble, limestone, alabaster, and other stones, all of them hand-carved with hammer and chisel. All but eight pieces were sold to private collectors and museums, including a bust purchased by the Evansville Museum of Art in Indiana.