Although best known as a sculptor with an emphasis on large scale, site-specific projects, Elyn Zimmerman has created and exhibited drawings and photographs since graduating from UCLA with an MFA in painting and photography in 1972. She continues to mix and match these media in her two dimensional works - sometimes emphasizing one over the other, but keeping a balance between the two processes. Until the mid-1980’s all the drawings were black and white or monochrome. Then the series “Ceremonial Objects”, introduced color and texture into her two dimensional work with the use of encaustic medium on watercolor paper. Throughout the 70’s and 80’s her photography continued to be black and white but printed in both conventional and unconventional media. Then, looking for both color and new surfaces, she created a portfolio of images in 1987 entitled “Magna Graecia”. These photographs were sepia-colored Iris prints on rough watercolor paper. Other Iris print portfolios followed, and work with full color printing started in 2001 and became the subject of several exhibitions at the Gagosian Galleries.

Zimmerman's sculptural works range in scale from studio pieces and private commissions to large scale, site-specific projects. In the mid 1970’s Zimmerman created a number of temporary installations for museum and gallery exhibitions. These projects were done at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; Hudson River Museum, NY; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; Berkeley Art Museum, Berkeley; Los Angeles County Museum of Art and the Hirshhorn Museum, Washington, DC. Returning to the USA after a trip to India in 1977, where she was inspired by archeological sites to do outdoor projects, she was invited to do temporary outdoor works at places like Artpark, Lewiston, NY; 1980 Winter Olympics, Lake Placid, NY; Laguna Gloria Art Museum, Austin, TX, and others. Her permanent outdoor projects, beginning in 1980, are best known for their use of stone, often in association with water, (reflecting pools, fountains) and landscape elements. Included among these large scale, public commissions was a fountain to memorialize the World Trade Center bombing, New York City; the design of the Sculpture garden at the Birmingham Museum of Art in Alabama; a fountain and seating area for AT&T headquarters in New Jersey; the plaza design including a large pool and granite sculpture at the National Geographic headquarters in Washington, DC; a plaza project in San Francisco, CA with multiple water elements and seating areas; a plaza in downtown Vancouver with sculpture and water elements. Other projects are currently under construction.

Zimmerman was born in Philadelphia, PA; received both undergraduate and Master’s degree in Art at UCLA, taught university level art classes from 1974 to 1986 in California and then New York, and has lived in New York City and Columbia County, NY since 1980.