Introduction
[excerpts]

A number of years ago, while glancing through an art magazine, my eye was caught by a series of reproductions of woodcuts that by their brilliance of expression and their emotional content clamed instant attention. Investigation revealed their author as Helen West Heller. . . I did not then realize that this was my introduction to the oeuvre of a distinguished performer in the ancient and beautiful art of woodcut and would lead to a friendship with one of the most remarkable women it has ever been my brivilege to know.

In the field of woodcut . . . there are many highly accomplished craftsmen today, but in it, as in all other fields of pictorial expression, or any form of expression for that matter, fewer truly creative spirits, and fewer still whose work combines both qualities to a high degree. Among these last I unhesitatingly place Helen West Heller . . . A woman of high intellectual attainments, unusual emotional intensity, and keen sensitivity of feeling, she has been able to combine all these qualities in her work and by lng years of self-discipline, training, and practice has developed a technical mastery of her tools and her medium which gives her fluent expression of them.