Born: Wellsville, Kansas, 1909
Resides: Olathe, Kansas, 1993
Elizabeth “Grandma” Layton came late to art, starting to draw at age 68. Her experiences with “blind contour” drawing, in which the artist draws an object without looking at the drawing itself, were therapeutic for Layton in ways that decades of psychiatric treatments were not. Using herself as her primary model, Layton initially pictured her own private struggles. But the range of her work quickly grew to encompass a range of social and political issues, including racism, sexism, ageism, war, and environmental destruction. She was particularly interested in the capacity of art for both personal and social change. Layton’s accessible thoroughly modern style recached thousands through two nationally touring exhibitions as well as many other shows and publications.