Painter, printmaker, and writer Ellen Jolin was born Maria Helena Ellen Jolin in Stockholm, Sweden on June 16, 1854. The daughter of actor-playwright Johan Christopher and his wife Katarina Jolin (née Wigert), she was exposed early to the arts. She first took private art lessons with Fredrik Scholander, Kerstin Cardon, and Carl Hansen before enrolling at the Royal Swedish Academy of Fine Arts, Stockholm. In 1899 she traveled to Paris to study at the Academie Julian under Jules Joseph Lefebvre, and then embraked on a series of trips to Italy, Belgium, England, North Africa, and Holland. This would culminate in an illustrated book of her travels titled From Study Trips to Mediterranean Countries, which she published in 1911.

Jolin exhibited frequently and internationally, including in Belgium, France, and England. Among her more prominent exhibitions was the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago, IL, where she showed seven paintings in the Palace of Fine Arts. She died in 1939, and was buried at Solna Cemetery, Stockholm. Her work can be found in the collection of the Museum of Fine Arts in Stockhom, among others. She was the aunt of noted artist Einar Jolin (1890 - 1976).