Born in Peking (Beijing), China, Blanche Grambs studied at the Art Students League in New York under Harry Sternberg. She worked for the WPA’s Federal Art Project and produced more than thirty prints for the program beginning in 1936. Her commitment to social reform set the tone for much of her work, including a cycle of prints depicting the plight of coal miners at Lanceford, Pennsylvania during those difficult times. She married and moved to Paris, returning unexpectedly upon the outbreak of World War II. Grambs was a prolific book and magazine illustrator; her work is held by American museums in New York, Philadelphia, Chicago, Detroit, and Baltimore, and Washington, D.C., as well as by the British Museum. She died at New York.