Gisella Lacher Loeffler

Born in Austria, she is noted as a Taos, New Mexico artist of decorative child folklore figures and illustration talents. Her cheerful Austrian and Mexican motifs were popular among her peers including Mabel Dodge Luhan. Loeffler signed her work simply "Gisella." She came with her family to the U. S. in 1908 and settled in St. Louis, Missouri where she studied art at Washington University. She created posters for the "St. Louis Post Dispatch" and began working in batik on textiles. An exhibition of Taos painter, Ernest Blumenschein, also from St. Louis, aroused her interest, and in 1933 she, divorced, moved with her two daughters to Taos where she lived the remainder of her life. She also traveled extensively in Mexico, South America and California. She did numerous murals for children's areas in hospitals across the United States. (AskArt 2006)