Eliscu studied at the Beaux-Arts Institute of Design in New York and on a scholarship at the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, New York; he also worked in the studio of Rudulph Evans. He had just completed his studies at Pratt, when in 1934 he was approached by New York's Downtown Athletic Club with the commission to create the sculpture by which he could be most widely recognized: the Heisman Trophy, awarded annually to the outstanding college football player.
After serving with the armed forces during World War II, Eliscu explored various improvements in sculptural techniques and published several books and articles on his methods of working in clay, wax, bronze, and stone.
Among his major public sculptures are the Cornell War Memorial at Olin Hall, Cornell University Medical School, Ithaca, New York, which honors physicians who died in World War II; the Shark Diver at Brookgreen Gardens, South Carolina; a huge bronze screen for the Library of Congress, Washington, D. C.; and Atoms for Piece, a monumental male figure at Ventura, California. He also worked in smaller scale; among his works in medallic sculpture is the President Gerald R. Ford Inaugural Medal.
Eliscu taught for over twenty years at New York's High School of Art and Design, and for three years, 1973-76 at the Academy school. He was a member of the Architectural League of New York, and the National Sculpture Society of which he was president from 1967 to 1970. He was an active exhibitor in Academy annuals since 1932, and in the annual of 1989 received the Academy's Speyer Prize.
