Booking and details
Plan your visitDates Fri, Oct 3 – Sun, Nov 9, 2025
Venue Stuart and Mimi Rose Rare Book and Manuscript Exhibition Hall
Tickets Free; timed-entry pass recommended
While “Old Master” paintings were largely created by men for men, Elise Ansel disrupts this viewpoint by creating feminist translations in oil paint. By employing the open-ended visual languages of color and abstraction, she creates new ways of looking and engaging for modern viewers. As a fellow, Ansel deploys this framework to reinterpret Henry Fuseli’s Macbeth Consulting the Vision of the Armed Head (1793), held in the Folger collection.
About Contemporary Art at the Folger
Each year, the Folger Shakespeare Library awards fellowships to artists whose creative work is grounded in research on the stories, art, and objects in our collection. From October 2025 to April 2026, the Folger will feature boutique-style solo shows highlighting selected works by artist fellows from across the country. The series will conclude with a final exhibition at Transformer DC, in the Logan Circle neighborhood.
About the artist
Elise Ansel
Elise Ansel was born and raised in New York City. Ansel received a BA in Comparative Literature from Brown University in 1984. While at Brown, she studied art at both Brown and the Rhode Island School of Design. She worked briefly in the film industry before deciding to make painting her first order medium. Ansel has exhibited her work throughout the United States and in Europe. Her works are held in the permanent collections of the Museum of Contemporary Art in Krakow, the Farnsworth Art Museum, NYU Langone, the Bowdoin College Museum of Art and the Evansville Museum of Arts and Sciences. She is represented by Miles McEnery Gallery in New York City, Cadogan Gallery in London and Milan, and Galerie Martina Kaiser in Cologne.
About Folger Institute
The Folger Institute is a center for early modern research at the Folger Shakespeare Library that brings public audiences together with researchers to explore the cultures and legacies of the early modern world. Learn more.