Ellen Rosalie Simon

Ellen Simon was born in Toronto and studied art at the Ontario College of Art, Toronto with Yvonne McKague Housser, among others; the Art Students League of New York (1936-1940);^[3] and the New School for Social Research in Toronto.^[4] She studied stained-glass by apprenticing with Yvonne Williams in Toronto and with the Joep Nicolas Studio in the Netherlands.^[4]

She was a modern artist who sought to convey political and social issues through her graphics and book or magazine illustrations.^[4] In 1937, she made lithographs such as Men (National Gallery of Canada), reproduced in the New Frontier magazine,^[5] a monthly Toronto magazine of literature and social criticism (1936-1937) begun in the Depression.^[6]

Her major work was as a creator of stained-glass windows for churches, synagogues and universities. For almost 40 years she was a colleague of Yvonne Williams and worked in her Toronto studio at commissions in Canada and the U.S.A.^[7] Among the churches for which she created the stained glass along with Yvonne Williams and Rosemary Kilbourne is St. Michael & All Angels Church in Toronto.^[8] Her graphics are in the collection of the Art Gallery of Ontario and the National Gallery of Canada.^[4] Ellen Simon taught at Riverside Church, New York from 1965 on.^[3]

Ellen Simon died on November 19, 2011, in Amesbury, Massachusetts.

Archives at
Location Trinity College Archives  Identifiers F2019  Source Ellen Simon fonds
How to use archival material

• Crawford, Gail (1998). A Fine Line: Studio Crafts in Ontario from 1930 to the Present. Dundurn. p. 208. ISBN 1459725735. Retrieved December 28, 2020.
• Sutherland, Fraser (1989). The Monthly Epic: A History of Canadian Magazines, 1789-1989. Toronto: Fitzhenry & Whiteside. Retrieved December 30, 2020.