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Albert Elia was a New York-based fashion illustrator, educator, and artist who built his career in fashion illustration through the 1960s and 1970s, publishing his first fashion illustration in “Mademoiselle” in 1964, followed by work in “Seventeen” magazine in 1972. Elia lived at 318 E. 59th street in a 4th floor walk up apartment from the 60s until his death, surrounding himself with other creatives from the fashion/art fringe. Alongside his magazine work, he taught fashion illustration at Parsons School of Design, where his course emphasized line and rendering the figure with expressive style, also teaching at the Fashion Institute of Technology and The New School, both in New York. A former Parsons student, Erin Robinson, remembers Elia as being one of her favorite teachers. Now a fashion designer by trade, a trained fine artist, and a book illustrator, Robinson is an active participant in the art scene and founder of lifestyle brand BrooklynDolly.

Elia’s influence in the classroom was matched by the enduring reach of his own illustrations. An example, “Stylized Figure in Black Gown with Large Polka Dots” (1970s), was later included in the Society of Illustrators' 2020 exhibition Fashion Illustration: The Visionaries, A Century of Illustrations from the Frances Neady Collection, described as a seminal exhibition in the field. Elia’s practice was never confined to fashion illustration alone. He provided sketches for Carola Spreads’ 1978 book “Breathing: The ABCs.” Elia also appeared before the camera in Frank and Caroline Mouris’s 1975 short film “Screentest,” a stop-motion portrait of nine gender-bending nonconformists from New York’s downtown avant-garde scene.

His work as a visual artist was recognized in fine art contexts as well. In 2007, he was among eight contemporary artists featured in “Erotic Art,” an exhibition at the Winter Tree Gallery in Sag Harbor exploring erotic fantasy through fine art. An example of his work also appears in Greenwich House’s Virtual Art Show, an ongoing online gallery for the organization’s community of artists. Elia’s body of work resists easy categorization: illustrator, educator, performer, and fine artist. It is this breadth, more than any single achievement, that marks his contribution as a multifaceted figure in New York’s creative landscape.