These selections from Joan Elkin’s vast output represent the many stories Joan captured visually—of her past, her parents, relatives, children, grandchildren, as well as her husband and his work as a writer and a professor. She used photographs of people she knew (and sometimes strangers) as inspiration, putting them in different settings and using different mediums with which to depict them. 

Though she had little interest in marketing her work to the art world, it has appeared in numerous solo and group exhibitions over the years, and selected for book covers and illustrations in other publications. Stanley once told an interviewer that happiness to him was to sit in their living room and look at Joan’s paintings. To see images of many more of Joan’s works, read a biographical sketch written by her daughter Molly, and to see more paintings, as well as photos and videos of Joan, visit joanelkin.com.