Dates

• Existence: 1918 - 2013

Biography

Josephine Pletscher, artist and librarian, was born in Muscatine, Iowa, in 1917, and raised in Des Moines, Iowa. After graduating from Roosevelt High School in 1935, Pletscher studied at Drake University. She later worked as a sales representative for Addressograph Multigraph, a company that produced address labeling machines, in Des Moines. In 1959, Pletscher decided to formally pursue her interest in fine arts. She moved to Los Angeles and enrolled as an art student at Immaculate Heart College, a Catholic college that was home to a lively and close-knit art department. At Immaculate Heart, Pletscher studied under art professor Corita Kent (then Sister Mary Corita Kent), whose influence left a lasting mark on Pletscher's own artistic sensibilities. She received her bachelors' degree from the college in 1962 and her masters' degree from the same institution in 1964. While working as a fine arts reference librarian at the Pasadena Public Library, as well as libraries at Rio Hondo College and Santa Monica Community College, Pletscher continued to make art. Her preferred medium was the serigraph, but she was well-known among her friends and colleagues for her hand-designed Christmas cards. She exhibited her serigraphs at a variety of venues in southern California and central Iowa, as well as Japan and Germany. In 2011, Pletscher self-published her first children's book, The Little Doves, which was followed by her second book Hobo in Hollywood, in 2012. Josephine Pletscher died in 2013.

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