1876-1955
Theme/Style – Figurative art, still lifes, landscapes, portraits
Media – Oils, gouaches, pastels, lithographs
Artistic Focus – An artist whose eyes were wide open to contemporary movements and considered a radical in the early 1900s, Helena Dunlap was one of the earliest American proponents of Post-Impressionism. Principally a figure painter, her subjects tended to be close to the surface and scaled to nearly the full height of the canvas. Often said to be the first woman Modernist, her pure, sparkling palette and deliberate brush strokes helped pave the way for future Modernist painters.
Career Highlights –
- Helena Adele Dunlap was born on a ranch in Whittier, California in 1876.
- Dunlap studied at the Art Institute of Chicago, the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, in New York City with William Merritt Chase, and with André Lhote in Paris.
- Returning to Los Angeles in 1911, Dunlap held her first solo exhibition that same year at the Steckel Gallery, about which a Los Angeles Times critic noted, “We need pictures like hers in Los Angeles, because they are ‘so different.’”
- In 1915, Dunlap exhibited at the Panama-Pacific International Exposition in San Francisco, and received both gold and silver medals at the 1915 Panama-California Exposition in San Diego.
- Dunlap had several solo exhibitions at the Los Angeles Museum of History, Science and Art between 1914 and 1923, as well as a two-person show there with Henrietta Shore in 1918.
- Helena Dunlap co-founded the Modern Art Society in Los Angeles in 1916, renamed the California Progressive Group in 1919, which acted as an alternative to the older and more conservative California Art Club.
- During the 1920s Dunlap’s frequent and extensive travels took her to Europe, the Middle East, and India, and her friend Henrietta Shore joined her on a trip to Mexico in 1927.
- After living in Paris for many years, Dunlap established a home in Laguna Beach in the early 1950s. Later she returned to Whittier where she kept a studio, and passed away there in 1955.
Bibliographic references are available upon request.