Gilda Mann Ellis, prolific artist and lifelong arts advocate, has died at 96
She was drawn to art and theater as a girl, and went on to create hundreds of abstract oil and acrylic paintings, silk-screen prints, sculptures, and artistic photographs.
Gilda Mann Ellis, 96, of Haverford, prolific artist, former national president of the Artists Equity Association, former chair of the Fine Arts Committee of the Philadelphia Redevelopment Authority, world traveler, longtime Mummers Parade costume judge, and volunteer, died Tuesday, Dec. 31, at her home of complications from a stroke.
Born in Philadelphia, Mrs. Ellis grew up in Wynnefield and Rittenhouse Square. She was drawn to art and theater as a girl at Friends Select School, and went on to create hundreds of abstract oil and acrylic paintings, silk-screen prints, sculptures, and artistic photographs.
She began exhibiting in 1961, and many of her paintings feature bright colors and broad strokes. Former Inquirer art critic Edward J. Sozanski called her pulp painting “intimate” in 2002, and an online collector described her painting A Pool Among the Rock as ”vibrant” and “modernistic.”
She was featured in solo shows and group exhibits in museums and galleries in Philadelphia; Washington; Richmond, Va.; Mexico City; and elsewhere in the United States and Mexico. She showed at the 1985 World Conference on Women in Nairobi, Kenya, and her pieces reside in permanent museum collections in Washington, in Mexico, and at Harvard University and the University of Richmond.
Blue Vertical, her 6-foot circular sculpture, is displayed at the Mann Center for the Performing Arts in Fairmount Park.
Over 70 years, Mrs. Ellis made art in every continent. She studied with abstract artist Sam Feinstein in Philadelphia and journeyed to Mexico to work with painters there. She practiced papermaking in China and Japan, and examined prehistoric cave art in Spain and France.
She photographed penguins in Antarctica and wildlife in Africa. In 1957, she earned a master’s degree from what is now Temple University’s Tyler School of Art and Architecture.
She told a writer for the University of Richmond magazine in 1999 that change and growth shaped much of her artistic expression. “Being static is the worst thing in the world for an artist,” she said.
As national president of the Artists Equity Association from 1977 to 1979, she was an advocate for professional artists and lobbied for legislation to increase federal contributions, improve tax laws, and update royalty regulations for her 5,000 members. She championed local galleries and created campaigns to attract new Equity members.
As chair of the Fine Arts Committee of the Philadelphia Redevelopment Authority for more than a decade, mostly in the 1990s, she monitored the display of public art in the city and ensured that 1% of construction budgets for new city buildings was designated for public art. She lectured about art and education, and was interviewed on TV and radio programs.
She was featured in The Inquirer in a 1978 article about Artists Equity during the Carter administration and said: “This is a very good time for Equity. … We have a level of input in legislation that we never had before.”
Her daughter Jane Ellis Gitomer said: “She could take charge of anything. She could have run IBM.”
She served on panels for the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, and the Young Men’s and Young Women’s Hebrew Association. She was active with the Philadelphia Art Commission and Rosenbach Museum, and judged costumes for the Mummers Parade for 13 years.
She turned 84 in 2012 and told an interviewer for Patch.com that she had no intention of letting her age dictate her actions. “I take an Aleve and go right on doing what I want,” she said.
Gilda Rand Mann was born May 29, 1928. Her father was Fredric R. Mann, former U.S. ambassador to Barbados and a local music impresario. The Mann Center for the Performing Arts is named for him, and Mrs. Ellis grew up in a home that was often filled with music and popular musicians of the day.
She designed stage sets for the Plays and Players Theater as a teenager, and graduated from Friends Select in 1945. In 1949, she was one of the first women to earn a bachelor’s degree in studio arts at Westhampton College, now the University of Richmond.
She was a rebel in college, she told Patch.com, and wore blue jeans to class when it was not permitted. “I wore a very long raincoat over my clothes every day,” she said.
She met Richard Ellis through mutual friends, and they married in 1949, and had daughters Marsha, Susan, Jane, and Eve. They lived in Bala Cynwyd and Haverford, and Mrs. Ellis enjoyed shopping trips to New York and doting on her family. Her husband died in 2019.
She played tennis and golf and, after losing much of her vision over the last 20 years, became active with the Blind Golf Association. “She was extraordinarily energetic and charismatic,” said her son-in-law Glenn Gitomer.
A friend said in a tribute: “She was always there for whoever needed anything.” Her daughter Jane said: “She was a superb mother.”
In addition to her daughters, Mrs. Ellis is survived by three grandchildren, one great-grandson, two sisters, and other relatives. Two sisters died earlier.
Services were held earlier.
Donations in her name may be made to the Wills Eye Hospital Richard A. Ellis annual lecture program, 840 Walnut St., Philadelphia, Pa. 19107; and the Mann Center for the Performing Arts, 5201 Parkside Ave., Fairmount Park, Philadelphia, Pa. 19131.