Nationality American Known for Painting | Role Painter Name Helen Torr | |
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Born 1886 Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Alma mater Drexel Institute and the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts Died 1967, Bay Shore, New York, United States Artwork Extemporaneous, Windows and a Door, Crimson and Green Leaves, Evening Sounds, Houses on a Barge | ||
Helen S. Torr (1886–1967) was an early American Modernist painter. Known as "Reds" because of her hair color, Torr worked alongside other artists, namely her husband Arthur Dove and friend Georgia O'Keeffe, to develop a characteristically American style of Modernism in the 1920s.
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Early life
Torr was born in Philadelphia in 1886. She studied at Drexel University and the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. Her first marriage was to the cartoonist Clive Weed.
Career
Torr's work was shown at Alfred Stieglitz's gallery An American Place in 1933 as part of a group show. Her work was exhibited publicly only twice during her life. In 1972 the Heckscher Museum organized a show of her work, and in 1980 the Graham Gallery in New York held a solo exhibition of her work.
Relationship with Arthur Dove
Torr met fellow artist Arthur Dove in Westport, Connecticut, which resulted in both artists leaving their first marriages. Around 1924 the couple settled aboard a sailboat anchored in Halesite on Long Island. In 1933, they moved to Dove's hometown, Geneva, New York, where they lived until 1938 when they moved to a cottage in Centerport on Long Island. They lived in the cottage until Dove's death in 1946. The cottage was acquired in 1998 by the Heckscher Museum of Art in Huntington, New York, and in 2000, was accepted into the Historic Artists’ Homes and Studios Program administered by the National Trust for Historic Preservation. Throughout their life the couple suffered from economic hardship and lived in extreme poverty.
