Printmaker and graphic designer Isolde Baumgart was born in Munich, Germany, in 1935. She studied at the State Academy of Fine Arts, Berlin and then the Fine Arts School of Kassel with Hans Leistikow and Hans George Hillman. As a student at Kassel, she befriended printmaker Roger Platiel, who encouraged her to further her studies at Stanley William Hayter’s famous experimental printmaking workshop, Atelier 17, in Paris. There, she met the American graphic artist Jim Monson, who she would later marry and with whom she would occasionally collaborate.

In addition to her fine art printmaking, Baumgart designed several Deutsche Bundespost (German Post) stamps for many decades, and was a poster deisgner for a variety of events (Munich Fair, the Bicentenary of the French Revolution, etc.), as well as for cinema. In 1965 she started teaching at the American Center in Paris, and would go on to teach at the University of Connecticut, USA; the Merz Akademie of Stuttgart; and at the University of Kassel. She was a member of the International Graphic Alliance (AGI), through whom she exhibited in Europe and U.S.

Her art can be found in private collections and institutions in Berlin, Frankfurt, Kassel, Minneapolis, Munich, the Paris National Library, Oslo, Skopje, Stuttgart, Wiesbaden, and more. Isolde Baumgart-Monson passed away in 2011.