Z. Vanessa Helder

Zama Vanessa Helder

Z. Vanessa Helder, ca1945

Zama Vanessa Helder (1904-1968) was an American artist from the Pacific Northwest who came from a family of Theosophists.

Personal life

Zama Vanessa Helder was born on May 30, 1904, in the town of Lynden, Washington, near the Canadian border. After graduation from Whatcom High School, she studied at the University of Washington. In 1934, she won a scholarship to the Art Students League of New York. When she came back to Seattle for the holidays in 1935, a local newspaper reported:

Despite her youth, Miss Helder has already gained wide recognition and has pictures in four different winter shows – the annual exhibition of the National Association of Women Painters and Sculptors, in which she has been elected to membership; the Fine Arts Guild show in New York, Grant's Galleries in Brooklyn, and the Argent Gallery in New York.

In 1941 she married an industrial architect, Robert J.S. "Jack" Paterson. They lived in the Pacific Northwest and in Los Angeles. She died in Los Angeles on May 1, 1968, a week after Jack.

Involvement with Theosophy

Blavatsky drawing, 1931

Trees drawing, 1932

Her parents, businessman Rynard Helder and his artistic wife Anna were interested in Theosophy and Spiritualism. None of the family are listed as members of the Theosophical Society in America, so they may have been independent Theosophists or adherents of some other branch of the broader Theosophical Movement. Vanessa's drawing of H. P. Blavatsky in the August 1931 issue of World Theosophy and the presence of additional drawings in the June 1932 issue indicate some degree of connection to editor Marie Russak in Los Angeles. Theosophical themes are not generally prominent in Helder's art.

Career as an artist

WPA art

Watercolor landscapes comprised a large portion of Helder's work, although she also made excellent drawings in pencil and charcoal. In 1937, took up work for the Works Progress Administration (WPA) in Washington, including painting murals at the Washington State Capitol in Olympia and at Sand Point Naval Air Station in Seattle. Both murals are no longer extant.

A series of paintings of the Grand Coulee Dam construction made in 1939-1941 is usually considered to be her most significant contribution. She was aware of the works' value, and kept the series together, eventually selling it to the Eastern Washington State Historical Society (now the Northwest Museum of Arts and Culture) in 1954.

Numerous exhibitions have displayed Helder's watercolors, including events at the Metropolitan Museum and the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York; and museums in Denver, Seattle, Oakland, Los Angeles, and all over Washington State. Examples of Helder's works can be seen in the collections of "the Seattle Art Museum, the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the Newark Museum, the High Museum of Art in Atlanta, GA, the Portland Art Museum, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the St. Louis Art Museum, the American Academy of Arts and Letters, N.Y., IBM Corporation, and the Northwest Museum of Art and Culture in Spokane," according to Wikipedia.

She taught classes at the Spokane Art Center, and from 1952 to 1955 at the Los Angeles Art Institute. Professional groups in which she participated include the Association of Women Painters and Sculptors, the American Watercolor Society, and California Watercolor Society.

Gallery

Here are some examples of Helder's works from the Grand Coulee Dam series:

• 
  B Street Cement Silos, 1939-1941
• 
  Cliff Drive, 1939-1941
• 
  Conveyor Belt, 1939-1941

Additional resources

Book cover with dam

Articles

• Vanessa Helder by Northwest Museum of Arts and Culture.
• Z. Vanessa Helder in Wikipedia.

Books

• Bullock, Margaret and David F. Martin. Austere Beauty: The Art of Z. Vanessa Helder. Tacoma Art Museum, 2013.
• David F. Martin An Enduring Legacy: Women Painters of Washington. Women Painters of Washington, 2012.