Celebrating the Creative Life and Work of Lynne McElhaney

Lynne McElhaney was a native of Dunkirk, NY. She graduated from Buffalo State College with a B.S. in Art Education in 1964 and a M.S. in Art Education in 1972. During her undergraduate time, she studied abroad in Siena, Italy and did graduate work in ceramic sculpture at Fredonia State College. She began her career as an art teacher in the Dunkirk School District and joined the faculty at Buffalo State in 1970. She became an Assistant Professor of Design in 1975 and retired from teaching in 2005. She exhibited her work extensively at the Albright Knox Art Gallery and the Burchfield Art Center and at many other galleries across Western New York. She received the SUNY Research Foundation Fellowship Award in 1975 and 1976 and worked as the acting director of the Burchfield Art Center in the 1970’s. She was a member of the Buffalo Society of Artists and the Patteran Group of Artists. Lynne also studied with children’s book author Uri Shulevitz and taught Children’s Book Illustration at Buffalo State. In the 1980’s she became very interested in paper and artists’ books and used them as a vehicle to teach design concepts in her classes. She studied at the Penland School of Crafts in North Carolina and received extensive training in traditional leather bound books and book repair while working with a master bookbinder in Rhode Island. She was a prolific artist whose work and style changed throughout her career. Her remarkable teaching skills and progressive work in the book arts impacted many of the students who studied with her.