Elizabeth Layton Correspondence

Artists Elizabeth Layton and Angi Curreri met in the fall of 1983, when Curreri was an artist-in education in Ottawa, Kansas. Curreri received her MFA degree at the University of Kansas in May of 1983. The correspondence between the artists continued after Curreri returned to Florida until November of 1992, four months before Elizabeth Layton passed away.

Elizabeth Layton - “Grandma Layton” as she became known - was a native of Wellsville, Kansas. She began drawing in 1977 at the age of sixty-eight when she took a drawing class at a local university. There she learned to use the technique of “blind” contour drawing in which the artist looks at the paper only for points of reference, concentrating on the subject reflected in the mirror rather than the line being drawn on the paper. She created self-portraits that reflected her response to contemporary social issues.

Layton came from a family of writers and journalists and was herself managing editor of her hometown newspaper, The Wellsville Globe. Her stint as editor influenced the editorial content of her drawings. She divorced in 1954 and raised five children. Her art also reflects her battle with depression, which caused her to identify with those tormented by the pressures of modern society. Her drawings and writings have been exhibited at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American Art, and in more than 200 art museums and centers throughout the U.S.

Angi Curreri was born in Brooklyn, New York and moved to Florida when she started high school. She earned her BFA from the University of Miami in Coral Gables and her MFA from the University of Kansas in Lawrence. She has been a Professor of Art at Barry University in Miami Shores, Florida since 1985.

Her artwork has been exhibited at museums and galleries throughout the U.S. and abroad and is included in private and public collections in the United States, Canada, Japan, Australia, and Rome. She has also been involved in the public art arena in South Florida creating ceramic installations and tile murals for Miami-Dade and Broward Counties.

In 2011 Professor Curreri was awarded the “Ambassador Jean Wilkowski International Fellowship” through Barry University to travel to Barcelona and the south of France to follow in the footsteps of two of her artist heroes: Antoni Gaudi and Vincent Van Gogh. Collages produced during the trip were exhibited in a one-person exhibition, “Small Offerings – Heart’s Desire and Travel Journals” in the Andy Gato Gallery at Barry University in the spring of 2012.