Born in Detroit, Michigan, Eleanore Mikus studied art in both Europe and the United States, where she trained at the Art Students League in New York and the University of Denver. A teacher as well as a painter and printmaker, she has been a visiting lecturer in America, England, and Italy. Between 1979 and 1994 she was on the studio art faculty of Cornell University. The recipient of a Tamarind fellowship in 1968, Mikus has regularly exhibited her prints and paintings since the early 1970s. Examples of her art can be found in various public collections throughout the United States and in England.
The delicate, almost ethereal nature of her prints masks a very complex creative process. Besides frequently reusing the lithographic stone, Mikus rotates the paper, sometimes creasing and folding it several times during the printing process. Fascination with the infinite possibilities of repetition and variation is a central impetus for much of her print work.
[This is an excerpt from the interactive companion program to the videodisc American Art from the National Gallery of Art. Produced by the Department of Education Resources, this teaching resource is one of the Gallery's free-loan educational programs.]