Ellen Lanyon (1926–2013) was a painter and printmaker whose compositions combined Surrealism, Magic Realism and the figurative traditions of Chicago art. Born in Chicago, she earned her B.F.A. from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 1948 and M.F.A. from the University of Iowa in 1950. A Fulbright Fellowship enabled her to study at the Courtauld Institute in London. Lanyon developed a distinctive visual language in which meticulously rendered animals, plants, domestic objects and family heirlooms appear in mysterious, dreamlike arrangements. Her work explores transformation, memory, environmental concerns and the unexpected relationships between ordinary things. Lanyon served as a Distinguished Visiting Professor in UC Davis’ Department of Art in 1980. Associated with Chicago's experimental art community, she later became active in the feminist art movement and contributed to Heresies, a feminist publication on art and politics. Her work was featured in a 1999 retrospective at the National Museum of Women in the Arts and is represented in collections including the Art Institute of Chicago, the Metropolitan Museum of Art and Smithsonian American Art Museum.