New York realist painter and educator Esther G. Rolick (1922-2008) taught art for two decades at Mercy College, where she helped to develop programs including a class, "Black Music and Art," for which she interviewed prominent Harlem artists and musicians.
Rolick studied at the Art Students League and had her first solo exhibition of drawings at Jacques Seligmann & Co. in 1947. She subsequently participated in exhibitions around the country and internationally in Haiti. In the 1960s she began teaching at Mercy College and helped to develop several innovative programs there. Rolick also traveled extensively and painted in places such as Bogota, Colombia and Palermo, Italy.