An experimental investigation on the static and dynamic stall characteristics of elliptic airfoil was performed by PIV velocity field measurements. The flow Reynolds number was $3.13{ imes}10^5$ and the reduced frequency of the pitch oscillation ranged from 0.075 to 0.125. The onset of static stall was caused by boundary layer separation which started at the trailing edge and progressed toward the leading edge. However, dynamic stall was caused by the vortex shed at the leading edge region and the flow field showed a vortex dominated flow with turbulent separation and alternate vortex shedding. The increase of reduced frequency increased the dynamic stall angle of attack and intensified the flow hysteresis in the down-stroke phase.