Biography
Florence Cane (1882-1952) was a Progressive art educator who worked to release the inner artist in each child through the use of creative, therapeutic techniques. She began teaching art at the Walden School in 1920 after she was asked by her sister, Margaret Naumburg to assist in the art education program. After much success at the Walden School, she continued to teach through private lessons at her home, lecturing teachers via seminars, and creating her own school for a short time at Rockefeller Center. At the end of her career, she was the art director at the Counseling Centre for Gifted Children at New York University where she helped to select students for entry into the school by judging their portfolios. She looked for four crucial elements within their work to judge their gifted potential: body, psyche, mind, and spirit. She held this position at the Centre for roughly 14 years.
Her techniques, as described on this site, proved to successfully rehabilitate both children and adults in discovering their inner artistic voice and to find methods for realizing their true potential for emotional expression. Cane had undergone psychoanalysis herself as a child and was a true believer in its ability to bring deep, inner thoughts, memories, emotions, and catharsis to the patient. This experience, along with her interest in Eastern philosophical ideas and Jungian techniques, helped her to study children in their various phases and stages in order to understand their cognitive abilities as they related to their artistic expression. She formatted her teaching methods and curriculum around this knowledge, only giving instruction when she felt the student needed it or when he/she requested assistance. Her classroom was a breeding ground for self-discovery and learning at one's own pace. She describes her classroom, techniques, and examples of student cases in her only book, The Artist in Each of Us, published in 1951. Her work has since been studied by generations of therapists and provided the basis for early art therapy techniques.
Her techniques, as described on this site, proved to successfully rehabilitate both children and adults in discovering their inner artistic voice and to find methods for realizing their true potential for emotional expression. Cane had undergone psychoanalysis herself as a child and was a true believer in its ability to bring deep, inner thoughts, memories, emotions, and catharsis to the patient. This experience, along with her interest in Eastern philosophical ideas and Jungian techniques, helped her to study children in their various phases and stages in order to understand their cognitive abilities as they related to their artistic expression. She formatted her teaching methods and curriculum around this knowledge, only giving instruction when she felt the student needed it or when he/she requested assistance. Her classroom was a breeding ground for self-discovery and learning at one's own pace. She describes her classroom, techniques, and examples of student cases in her only book, The Artist in Each of Us, published in 1951. Her work has since been studied by generations of therapists and provided the basis for early art therapy techniques.