An Interesting Story - a.k.a. Is Anybody Home?

Nura Woodson Ulreich

Nura Woodson Ulreich enjoyed a brief but successful career as a painter, illustrator, and decorative designer, but her star faded upon her untimely death. She was particularly noted for her drawings of children in scenes of a surreal, melancholic nature, making her work as much Magic Realism as illustrative. Though often dismissed by art critics of the time as being decorative rather than serious, Ulreich’s work could today stand comparison to Frida Kahlo, Marc Chagall, and others who found artistic merit in the connection between unfettered imagination, spirituality, and the human condition.

Ulreich said of her subject matter: "Childhood is a state of being. Children express it. They do not possess it. It is intact when they enter it and intact when they leave it. It is not confined to flesh and blood children. Whatever invokes within us gentleness, tenderness, or a desire to both laugh and cry is surely imbued with the Childhood Spirit. The little figures in my works are offered merely as symbols of the universally beloved state being called childhood."