Emmy Lichtwitz Krasso

Emmy Lichtwitz Krasso (January 19, 1895 – August 6, 1974) was an Austrian-American artist. Her artwork ranged from the Old Master style to Expressionism.

Lichtwitz Krasso attended the Academy of Art for Women from 1911 to 1916 in Vienna, Austria, also known as the Vienna Women's Academy. At the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Budapest, Hungary, she earned a Master of Fine Arts degree in 1917. She did postgraduate work at the State Textile School, and the State Institute of Graphical Arts at the University of Vienna. At the university in Budapest, she learned all techniques of painting, ending with the Old Master technique.

From 1918 to 1938 she had her own studio in Vienna, where she taught students from 1925 to 1938. Among the lithographs she created shortly after World War I were "Dance of Life" and "Resurrection." Later, she created a series of lithographs entitled "We" showing the connection between "etchers" such as herself and city workers. Among these drawings were "Our Song" and "The Demonstration."

She was an assistant from 1933 to 1935 to Professor Franz Cižek, who founded the Child Art Movement. She was especially influenced by Expressionism, which began in Germany and her native Austria during her childhood.

In 1939 she and her husband, Oscar T. Krasso, fled Austria for Mumbai (Bombay), India. While there, she asked Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi for permission to sketch him in person. At first, he refused, stating he did not seek publicity for himself, but when he heard that she was a refugee from her own country, he allowed her to make life sketches of him for one month. From these drawings she created a 7' by 4 1/2' oil painting of Gandhi in the Old Master style in 1945. The same year, she had a one-man show in Mumbai.

In Mumbai, she began a children’s art movement in the schools. Paintings were exchanged between students in India and the United States. Some of these paintings are owned by the Columbia University Library, the Montclair Art Museum, the New York Public Library and Denver Art Museum.

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