RIT Archives
Ellen Swartz made this high chair for her son around 1972.
A clock with a human face, a lamp base with a hidden compartment, and an Art Nouveau-inspired high chair are among the objects featured in a new RIT Archives exhibit honoring a trailblazing alumna.
"Carving a Legacy" celebrates the late Ellen Swartz’s achievements as an artist and a role model for women woodworkers and furniture designers.
The exhibit is located on the third floor of Wallace Library and is accessible until the end of the academic year.
RIT Archives
Furniture maker and educator Ellen Swartz graduated from RIT’s School for American Crafts in 1966.
Swartz started as a violin student at the Eastman School of Music but left her studies to build and repair violins. In 1964, she applied to RIT’s School for American Crafts and, in 1966, became the first woman to graduate with an associate’s degree in woodworking and furniture design.
“Ellen Swartz holds a legendary place in the College of Art and Design,” said Elizabeth Call, RIT university archivist. “At a time when women were expected to choose only from a narrow set of professions, she carved out a path in furniture making, a field virtually closed to them. Her persistence and artistry remind us how much courage it takes to change what’s possible.”
Swartz completed around 200 woodworking projects, including chairs, tables, stands, magazine racks, and lamps, and sold her furniture through a Boston-based gallery. She explored working with stacked and laminated plywood and wrote about her technique in a 1977 issue of Fine Woodworking magazine.
She balanced her interest in furniture making with a career in education, first as an industrial arts teacher and, later as a consultant for the Rochester City School District.
Swartz, who died in 2018, had earned advanced degrees in counseling and education from the State University of New York at Brockport and from the University of Rochester. She co-authored three books about urban education and culturally informed curriculum and pedagogy, and taught at Nazareth University, Niagara University, and Pace University.
The artist’s husband, Joel Swartz, a 1969 alumnus with a BFA in photography, donated the Dr. Ellen Swartz collection to the RIT Archives in 2019.
