The Legacy of Edith Kramer

Welcome to the companion website for The Legacy of Edith Kramer: A Multifaceted View edited by Lani Gerity and Susan Ainlay Anand. The Legacy of Edith Kramer presents a unique exploration into the life and work of the groundbreaking artist and art therapist. This edited volume examines the artist’s personal and cultural history prior to relocating to the United States as well as the later years when she worked as an artist, art therapist, and teacher as she developed her theoretical understanding of art therapy.

Kramer’s solutions for creating a meaningful artist’s life run throughout the chapters within this book and provide the reader with a sense of what is possible. Written by an international group of contributors, this informative new text offers a multifaceted view of Edith Kramer that will be appreciated by current and future art therapists looking to better understand Kramer’s exceptional mind and contributions to the field. This practical resource will prove to be an invaluable reference and inspiration for any art therapist or educator working in the field of art therapy.

Here’s what you’ll find on this website

On this website, art therapists can find supplemental materials, including:

two historic videos (one of Edith Kramer as a child and one of Edith describing her views of the human need for art),
many supplemental photos (some early family photos included),
and an essay by Edith Kramer’s friend and photographer, who contributed a majority of the photos to the book, Herschel J. Stroyman.

Book Information Complimentary Exam Copy

Book Cover

Reviews

“Lani Gerity and Susan Ainlay Anand, along with their cadre of amazing contributors, managed to bring Edith Kramer back to us with integrity, respect and humor, and endowed to us the scholarly perspectives and life lessons that she embodied. You don’t often hear this about academic, scholarly texts, but I could not put this book down; it was simply a pleasure to read. Thank you Lani and Susan for keeping her legacy alive.“
— Dave Gussak, PhD, ATR-BC, Professor of Art Therapy, Chair of the Department of Art Education, Florida State University

“To all those students of art therapy who never had the opportunity to herald the arrival of Edith Kramer in their classrooms, fresh off the train from New York City with a rucksack of client art work on her back and her long gray braid swinging, this book is as close as it gets. The Legacy brings Edith’s work to life, revealing the potency, tenacity, and beauty of theories that form the basis of art therapy.”
— Audrey Di Maria, MA, LCPAT, ATR-BC, Editor, Exploring Ethical Issues in Art Therapy: 50 Clinicians From 20 Countries Share Their Stories (Routledge, 2018).

“This beautiful book illustrates the legacy of Edith Kramer as a pioneer, which is more and more relevant at this time, when art therapy is becoming global. Indeed, her words may help others to be pioneers in their own countries, focusing on what she describes as the essential simplicity of art therapy: ‘a safe place, where people may be respected and feel alive… and may perceive their world again, and make some sense of it.”
— Paola Luzzatto, PhD, Registered Art Therapist, UK and USA, Art Therapy Teacher and Supervisor, Italy and Tanzania

“The legacy of Edith Kramer has been well documented in multiple publications and countless professional presentations, so why yet another book? Gerity and Anand have gathered contributions from many who knew Edith well, and hence this book provides fascinating and intimate glimpses of Edith as provocateur, critic, friend, colleague, pioneer art therapist, and consummate artist.”
— Bruce L. Moon, PhD, ATR-BC, HLM, Professor and Chair of the Art Therapy Department, Mount Mary University