She lived at 547 Mendocino Avenue, in one of the finest custom-built homes in town. Helen was the oldest of four children, the youngest of whom died of diphtheria at age 6. The family spent summers in their beach cabin at Jenner-by-the-Sea. She was a good student and graduated from DeWitt Montgomery High in Santa Rosa with college standard grades. Unfortunately, this idyllic and privileged small town life came tumbling down suddenly. Due to a fraud scandal at the bank, her father lost most of his assets. In order to make good on losses, he was forced to sell most of their property.
At the time when her high school friends were going east to college, Helen followed her family to the remaining farm, "The Poplars," just out of town. Helen found this life frustrating as there was little time for her interests. She took pleasure in making home amenities with cloth left over from sewing projects her mother had finished. She developed a natural gift for needlework. During this time, she took courses in industrial design and became an expert tailor.
(While a Student at California School of Fine Arts - Age 23)
While a second year student, Helen was told about a famous California artist just back from France. It was said he was changing the art scene in San Francisco. She was feeling 'stuck' with her painting class and decided to attend one of his "Modernist" lectures. The speaker she met was Otis Oldfield, who inspired her to do much more with her talent than design fabric patterns. In April of 1925, she enrolled in Oldfield's still life painting class at the California School of Fine Arts in San Francisco.
Helen and Otis married at the end of 1926 in Ralph Stackpole's stone yard and were the darlings of the San Francisco artistic community. Their wedding made the front pages of all the local. newspapers. The couple quickly moved from Oldfield's studio in the 'Monkey Block' to a small apartment on Telegraph Hill. The Telegraph Hill apartment soon maintained Otis's studio, Helen's workshop, and a nursery for their two little girls born in 1927 and 1928.
Although the depression was at its height, Otis continued to support his family by teaching at the California School of Fine Arts. He was exhibiting all over the country and gaining a very broad reputation. Helen was continuing her creative needlework and painted along with Otis whenever the chance offered her time. People began to link their painting styles, relegating Helen to the role of student and follower. This situation upset Helen so much that she gave up the idea of showing her work independently. She decided instead that she would concentrate on professional tailoring jobs, and continue her commercial fabric design.
Helen started teaching at Sarah Dix Hamlin School, starting with art classes for lower school girls. She was so innovative and popular at the school that by 1946 she was given more classes, including painting and art history for the upper school academy. Before retiring in 1971, she served as Head of the Art Department for 15 years.
During this time, and throughout the war years, Otis maintained classes in his studio on Russian Hill, where the family had moved in 1937. From that date, Helen made many paintings which were highly professional in a realistic, figurative style. She also started making abstractions from the class still lifes.
When Otis died in 1969, Helen's major work on her own started. Her first sales began in 1972 when she sold six drawings in her new deco-graphic style through the Valley Art Gallery in Walnut Creek. She sent drawings to the Arts and Crafts Co-op in Berkeley, and entered the San Francisco Art Festival. In the same year she also completed a private commission for a large male nude in her new, smooth figurative style.
(Head, Art Department, Sarah Dix Hamlin School, San Francisco - Age 63)
(At Alta - Age 69)
Unfortunately, Helen suffered with arthritis for many years. In 1974 she broke her hip and became somewhat immobile. Her health and energy deteriorated rapidly during the late 1970's and she could do very little work. She concentrated on complex figurative drawings in charcoal, ink and watercolor.
By 1980 Helen was a resident of the Laurel Heights Convalescent Home on California Street. They hung a retrospective exhibit of 30 paintings from all periods and styles of her life's work. She died there in 1981. Fortunately, that year she had just completed an interview, "Otis Oldfield and the San Francisco Art Community," for the Regional Oral History Office of the Bancroft Library at U.C. Berkeley. A 1977 Oral History transcript is also available from the Mann Civic Center Library, San Rafael.
The Greenwich Gallery, in Connecticut displayed two of Helen’s paintings in their “Dimensions in Modernism” exhibit, March/April, 2003.
Spencer Jon Helfen Fine Arts of Beverly Hills, CA, exhibited one of Helen’s paintings in his “Trends in Northern California Modernism”, October of 2003, and two paintings in his exhibit “The California Modernist Still Life”, May/August, 2004.