Heller, Helen West

Helen West Heller (1872 – November 19, 1955) was an American painter, printmaker, poet, and illustrator. Heller was born Helen Barnhart in Rushville, Illinois, the daughter of a farmer, boat builder, and decoy maker. Plagued by poor health throughout her life, she suffered as a result in school. In 1892 she moved to Chicago, becoming a model to support her self-training in art. In 1902 she moved to New York City, doing factory work and embroidery to support herself. While taking lessons at the Art Students League of New York; she also had lessons, at some point in life, at the St. Louis School of Fine Arts in Missouri. She also studied with Robert Henri and George Bellows at the Ferrer Center Modern School. In 1921 she returned to Chicago, bringing with her fifty paintings that excited no interest in the local artistic community; consequently, she became a founding member of the Chicago No-Jury Society. She cut her first woodcut two years later. Heller's poetry, meanwhile, attracted the attention of Jane Heap, and between 1926 and 1928 she published a large number of works in journals and in the weekly Art Magazine of the Chicago Evening Post under the name "Tanka". She attempted to...