"Many wood-engravers begin by drawing their design in complete detail on the block before cutting. Miss Heller prefers to sketch in the rough composition and then improvise on the wood as she goes along ... As one can see by the moving forms in Nocturne, the artist is deeply concerned with the power of suggestion in art - a power potent enough to "call spirits from the vastly deep." Conceived in abstract terms it is still lucid enough to make the meaning plain. It is indeed a compelling print, full of the awesome shapes and terrors that prowl in the depths of the subconscious; it is that fearful time of night when the powers of darkness take possession of a mind asleep...
From: American Prize Prints of the 20th Century
by Albert Reese, American Artists Group, N.Y., 1949
Gifted in nearly all of the pictorial arts - fresco, oil and watercolor painting, mosaic, lithography - Helen West Heller's greatest artistic achievement lies in the medium of woodcut and wood engraving. She once said of her prints, "I begin thinking in terms of the wood; only this way can original creation take place. I am a forerunner in the development of composition into a phase of psychology, by discovering ways of conveying emotions through abstractions. My product is completely creative; entirely divorced from the motive of conveying authors' images."
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Helen West Heller: Flight, 1950
woodcut, image size: 9.5" [h] x 10.5" [w]
collection of Scattergood-Moore © 2012
was born during 1872 or 1873 of mixed South-German and English parentage, on a small farm in the town of Rushville, in the western county of Schuyler, Illinois. She was the oldest of three daughters of Washington Miller Barnhart (b. 1843, PA), a farmer, and Edith Harrington Barnhart (b. 1846, VT). She was two years older than her sister Edith and five years older than Elise. Most likely she developed her interest in nature motifs and her love for wood as an artistic material from her father, a wagon maker and later a self-sustaining farmer - "also known for making decoys for duck shooting and as a builder of boats" according to Dr. Ernest Harms. She had little formal schooling and was needed to help on the farm.
In 1892, at the age of twenty, Helena ran away to Chicago. To support her artistic self-training in sculpture and painting, she became a professional model and took many menial jobs. She lived an extremely isolated and destitute life. . .
By 1901 Helena Barnhart moved to New York City where she attended the Art Student League while attempting to make a living with embroidery and factory work. She was concentrating on painting, but with little artistic or financial success. Later in the year she married Herbert Warren West in the Bronx in 1901. . .
Around 1906, Helena Barnhart West and Herbert West were living in Illinois. She crimped to buy art materials and stamps to send her poems to magazines. After five unsuccessful years she had a successful exhibition in a town which gave her confidence to make a new attempt in the art world.
Helena Barnhart West was in New York during 1909, where she met Roger Paul Heller from Helen's hometown, Canton, Illinois. Six years later, Helena (age 39) and Roger Heller (age 23) shared the same address in Allentown, PA. Helen divorced Herbert West in January, 1913 and Roger and Helen were married in Allentown during 1914. Following their marriage they left Allentown for a farm in Canton, Illinois.
From 1914 to around 1920, Roger and Helen West Heller worked on a farm in Canton, Illinois.
In 1915, Helen West Heller illustrated three books published by P. F. Volland Company in Chicago: "Diana Forge," "Let Us Do The Best That We Can," and "Yesterdays with You."
Late in 1921 Helen West Heller left Roger Heller and bringing with her fifty canvases, returned to Chicago to start a new career as a painter. During March of 1922, she had her first solo show at the Walden Bookshop in Chicago. In 1923 Ms Heller cut her first wood block. "At first her prints were not well received; the public felt her art was too abstract and her woodcuts unrealistic. Undaunted, she felt this was simply the nature of her art."
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Oak Street, Beach at Night aka The Beach at Cedar Street, 1925
8 13/16" x 5 3/4" linoleum-cut or woodcut on brown paper
(collection of Scattergood-Moore)
Oak St. Beach, Looking toward Lake Shore Drive, Chicago
postcard, 1929
During 1923, The Chicago Evening Post arts magazine published the first image by Helen West Heller and in 1926 they published her first poem; the Art Magazine continued to publish her poems for the next two years under the heading 'Tanka'.
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Migratory Urge 1928
wood-cut poems by Helen West Heller
(book in the collection of Scattergood-Moore)
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Cat Behind the Curtain, 1928
woodcut on page 20
(woodcut in the collection of Scattergood-Moore)
In 1928, encouraged by her poetic success, Helen West Heller cut a whole set of wood blocks to illustrate her poems under the title Migratory Urge. The whole as a modern block book or xylographic print was published in two editions - a portfolio of 30 prints and a limited edition of 109 signed and numbered copies printed from 57 wood blocks on Spanish hand-made paper at The Hogarth Press. Chicago, November. 1928 and published by Franklin J. Meine, Chicago, 1928
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Intersection of Three Streets 1929
wood engraving, image size: 5 1/4" [w] x 4 7/8" [h]
(collection of Scattergood-Moore)
Intersection of Three Streets, 1929
original photograph of oil painting
(collection of Leonard Davenport)
In 1929 Helen West Heller's painting, Intersection of Thee Streets, was in the Jefferson School of Social Science, a Marxist study center. "According to Ethel Staples, a friend and patron, Helen referred to herself as a Marxist." (LSD)
She remained in Chicago until 1932, where she exhibited regularly and sold many of her prints. She contributed poems and woodcuts to the Golden Book Magazine, The Measure, The Little Review, Pagan, and the Chicago Evening Post Magazine of the Art World, and others.
Operation (1929) lithograph
inscribed "To my Friend Charles Biesel, Christmas 1929,
in memory of hard labor in East Chicago Ave."
(collection of Scattergood-Moore)
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Baseball 1928
woodcut, image size: 6 3/4" [w] x 8 5/8" [h]
Allinson Gallery, Boston, MA
Baseball, 1928
oil on canvas, image size: 31 3/4" x 23 1/2" / 26 5/8" x 35 7/8" (framed)
Many of Helen West Heller's paintings were painted after her woodcuts, how-
ever, this painting, was most likely, painted before she executed the woodcut.
Indianapolis Museum of Art, Onya Latour Collection
In 1932, at the age of sixty, Helen West Hellernleft Chicago and after a brief visit with Roger on the farm in Canton returned alone to New York City, for the third time - creating some of her most complex and beautiful woodcuts. She contributed illustrations, reworked from her woodcuts for The New York Times from 1932-1951 and created illustrations for a number of book and magazine publishers. She was active in artists' social and political affairs, a member of the Artists Equity Association and a signer of the Call for The American Artists' Congress in 1941.
Congress of American Artists, 1941
• AMERICAN CONGRESS ARTISTS •
American Earth aka American Soil, 1935
left panel: Cotton Picking - middle: Reforestation - right: Corn Husking
(left & central panel, collection of Scattergood-Moore)
"The owner of the Green Bookstore on 3rd Avenue recalled her fondly as a 'short, almost tiny energetic' woman who lived nearby and dropped in often. The owner, my father (Mr. Davenport) and Helen and Nelson Garlinghouse separately all talked about Helen's political and outspoken bent, using the word communist in the context of the 1950s." (LSD)
In 1947, along with approx. sixty labor and liberal leaders, artists and other leftists, Helen West Heller signed the following statement, published by the Investigation of un-American activities in the United States, Committee on Un-American Activities, in 1947:
". . . Fascism began its attack on democracy in every nation under the banner of "anti-Communism." It quickly moved on to the destruction of all political groups, trade unions, civic and religious organizations, that stood in its way.
In New York, a general attack is being made on the right of any minority party to participate in the elections, with the most intensive fire being directed at removing the Communist Party from the ballot. Defending its own electoral rights in the courts now, the Communist Party, as the first and immediate object of attack, is thereby defending the American principle of free elections.
Fascism must not happen here.
Murder At A Doorway 1932
wood engraving, image size: 2 " [h] x 3 7/8" [w]
(collection of Scattergood-Moore)
We cannot permit freedom to be strangled, either by open terror or by legalistic trickery.
We, the undersigned, representing citizens of various political opinions, hereby record our strenuous objections to any undemocratic attempt to deprive any minority party of the right to the ballot. We brand such attacks as an assault on the American principle of free elections. We call upon the responsible officials of the major parties to repudiate these attacks and actively defend the basic electoral rights of all American citizens by formal and public opposition to the actions taken against the minority groups.
By word and by deed we pledge ourselves to work for the maintenance of the system of free elections for all."
from: Report on Civil Rights Congress as a communist front organization. Investigation of un-American activities in the United States, Committee on Un-American Activities, House of Representatives, Eightieth Congress, first session. Public law 601 (section 121, subsection Q (2))., Published 1947
Report on Civil Rights Congress
Cider Press, 1939
linocut (diptych), 11 1/4" [w] x 5 1/2" [h]
(collection of Scattergood-Moore)
Helen West Heller was active during the period of the WPA Federal Art Project; she created prints, murals and mosaic for the WPA, the largest mural being a set of 39 panels, titled Boys and Girls at Work and at Play, for a ward in the Neposit Beach Hospital for Children on Long Island. 11 of these panels on canvas survive and are looking for a home.
Alabama Biochemist, 1947
(portrait of George Washinton Carver)
woodcut
(collection of Scattergood-Moore)
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In 1947, Woodcuts U.S.A., a book containing 20 of Helen West Heller's woodcuts, with quotes by American writers and a laudatory introduction by John Taylor Arms, was published in a limited signed edition by Oxford University Press, New York.
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Seasons (self portrait) 1948
wood engraving, image size: 8" [w] x 10.5" [h]
Based on portrait photograph by Harrison Knox.
Created for National Academy of Design.
(collection of Scattergood-Moore)
Dieing Tree, 1953
color woodcut, image size: 16 1/8" [h] x 14" [w]
(collection of Scattergood-Moore)
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In 1948 Miss Heller became an Associate member of the National Academy of Design; to comply with a requirement associated with this honor, she created a self portrait in wood engraving (10.5" x 8"), titled Seasons.
During 1949, Heller's wood engraving Nocturne aka Saint Francis On Mount Verna (see above), which was originally cut in 1929, won First Purchase Prize at the Library of Congress and was published in the American Artists Group's "American Prize Prints of the 20th Century."
Zodiac and Polaris, 1952
colored linocut, 43.9 x 40.6 cm
(Collection of Scattergood-Moore)
During the early 1950s, shortly before her death, Helen West Heller created a number of large color woodcuts, which according to Dr. Ernest Harms, "brought her more economic success than anything else in her not easy life."
On October 18, 1955, six weeks before she died, Helen West Heller wrote a seven page autobiographical memoir. In it she explains why she left her husband and moved to Chicago, to try to earn a living as an artist, how she learned to do woodcuts, and expressed her bitterness toward the Arts Club and the Art Institute of Chicago for refusing to exhibit her work.
Helen West Heller died at Bellevue Hospital, New York City, on November 19, 1955.
"The death of Helen West Heller, distinguished wood-cut artist, became known yesterday. For ten days her body has remained unclaimed at the Bellevue morgue. Mrs. Heller was 83 years old. She became ill Nov. 18 at her home, 732 East Sixth Street, and was taken to Bellevue. She died the next day. Since then the Police Bureau of Missing Persons and the Artists Equity Association have tried unsuccessfully to locate members of her family. She was without immediate relatives, and had been supported by city relief. The City Welfare Department and the Artists Equity now are making arrangements for the funeral. . ." - The New York Times; November 30, 1955; page 38.
Helen West Heller was buried at the Rosedale and Rosehill Cemetery, Linden, Union County, New Jersey.
During the last two and a half decades of her life Helen West Heller produced over six hundred woodcuts which established her as a major American printmaker. Exhibitions at the Brooklyn Museum and Columbia University won her widespread recognition and institutions such as the Library of Congress and Brooklyn Museum acquired her prints. Unfortunately like many other women artists of the period Helen West Heller was nearly forgotten, accept for the writings of Dr. Ernest Harms who wrote an important appreciation of her prints, Helen West Heller - The Woodcutter for the Print Collector's Quarterly. April 1942, and an article on her life, Dark to Light: An appreciation of the life work of Helen West Heller, 1872-1955, for American Artist, November 1957. In 1955, he donated over 180 woodcuts by Helen West Heller to the Metropolitan Museum of Art,m New York City.
"Helen West Heller has lived the life of a full blooded personality striving and fighting for an artistic ideal . . . Far too little is known even among artists about this amazing woman."
Dr. Ernst Harms
During 1956 there was a small memorial exhibition for Helen West Heller and two other artists in a gallery in New York City; and in May, 6 months after her death, Roger Paul Heller arrived in the City! Roger returned to Canton and sometime later relocated to New York City.
During 1959 Roger was confined to mental institutions in New York and fifteen years later, in 1975, he died in the infamous Pilgrim State Hospital on Long Island, NY.
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WORKS IN SELECTED COLLECTIONS:
- Brooklyn Museum (44 prints, 1 drawing)
- Davis Museum, Wellesley College, Wellesley, MA (5 prints)
- Georgetown University Art Collection (Migratory Urge book & portfolio)
- Indianapolis Museum of Art (4 paintings, 1 drawing, 1 watercolor, 1 woodcut)
- Library of Congress (25 prints)
- Northwestern University: Mary and Leigh Block Museum of Art (2 prints)
- Metropolitan Museum of Art (188 prints)
- National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC (14 prints)
- New York Public Library (6-16 prints from Woodcuts USA)
- Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (1 print: Seasons)
- Smithsonian (1 print: Rustic Sounds)
- University of Michigan Museum of Art (1 woodcut: Jungle)
- Yale University Library (29 prints, 1 drawing)
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Helen West Heller's woodcut poem "Waif"
from
Migratory Urge (1928)
TIME 
LINE
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NOTICE
I am interested in locating and/or purchasing woodcuts, paintings and illustrated books by Helen West Heller as well as unpublished letters, papers, diaries and photographs, especially photographs of this important American printmaker. Please contact me.
An exhibitition of Helen West Heller woodcuts was held in Wellesley, Massachusetts, from January 13 to February 7, 2003. Curated by Scattergood-Moore, an admirer of Ms. Heller's woodcuts since the mid-1970s, the exhibit was the most significant exhibition of her art work since her death in 1955. The prints on display were drawn from three commercial galleries and two private collections. Over fifty woodcuts (executed from 1924 to 1953) plus illustrated books, a painting and copper relief by Helen West Heller were exhibited.
Installation view of the exhibit: "Helen West Heller," January 2003
Following is one art student's response to the Helen West Heller exhibition and on Heller's life and art - published in the school newspaper, February 2003:
A Natural Artist: Helen West Heller:
"It is hard to imagine that the Helen West Heller exhibit in the ...Art Gallery is the first public showing of the artist's work since her death in 1955. Born on a farm in Illinois in the 1870's, Heller ran away to Chicago and then New York, looking for artistic self-fulfillment. She eventually became one of the finest woodcut artists and graphic illustrators of twentieth-century America. She worked as an art model, an embroidery piece worker, and a factory laborer to support herself while she struggled against loneliness, depression, and poverty. She trained herself to work in oils, turning, finally, in the 1920's to the woodcut as an artistic medium that brought together her love of craft with her spiritual sense of nature and abstract form.
Heller successfully gives wood fluidity and emotion; her prints spring to life. Many of her pieces have multiple elements, combining abstract with natural forms; yet they are always organized so they come together to represent a common idea or a story. Through her life of failed marriages, financial struggles and poor health, Heller kept her artistic origins and ideals alive. "I stumbled through life with scrappy information in various fields." Perhaps this is true; yet this information and spirit made her work appear so human and provided inspiration to so many other artists."
Roz Paradis
