User:Shipwreckedtoadstool921/sandbox

Biography
Veronica Helfensteller (1910–1964) was an American painter and printer, who was a member of the Fort Worth Circle, a group of artists in Fort Worth, Texas, active in the 1940 and 1950s.

Born in 1910, Helfensteller's parents were Armin and Louise Helfensteller. She lived in Fort Worth during her early years. In 1926-27, she studied at the School of Fine Arts, Washington University in St. Louis (St. Louis, Missouri) before continuing her studies at the Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center (Colorado Springs, Colorado).She later studied at the International School of Art in Budapest Hungary.

Helfensteller exhibited her works in a solo show at the Fort Worth School of Fine Arts in 1938. Animals were at the center of many of Helfensteller's works. They were often depicted in fantastical, allegorical settings. In 1944, she began an etching that was attended by other Fort Worth Circle artists. '''“She was very friendly and outgoing,” he said. “She had flashing eyes like a gypsy. She was a nice-looking woman. She was pushy, but a lot of those artists were or they wouldn’t have survived.”'''[FWWeekly]

Helfensteller was one of six artists from the Fort Worth group whose work was shown in the Weyhe Gallery in New York in 1944. Kelly Fearing, Dickson Reeder, Bror Utter, Lia Cuilty, Bill Bomar, Cynthia Brants and others would meet at Helfensteller's to work on their art. After the group separated, Helfensteller moved to Santa Fe, New Mexico and Guatemala.

Her work was shown in the retrospective exhibition "Beyond Regionalism: The Fort Worth School (1945–1955)" (Albany, Texas, 1986); in the exhibition "The Texas Printmakers, 1940–1965" (Meadows Museum, Dallas, 1990), and the exhibition "Prints of the Fort Worth Circle, 1940–1960", (Archer Milton Huntington Art Gallery, 1992). Her work is held in the collections of the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, the Dallas Museum of Art, and the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston.

Later she moved to Tucson, Arizona, where she taught art history and art appreciation at the Valley School for Girls.

She died in Tucson, Arizona in 1964.

Art
Veronica Helfensteller's artwork was influenced by the artists around her. As an member of the Fort Worth Circle, she was one of the Texas Modernists, whose works were influenced by American Regionalism, European Cubism and Surrealism. Helfensteller was an avid traveler and these travels influenced her work. Hoops and Kites (1948) incorporates a number of hieroglyphic figures, which reference Mayan hieroglyphics she would have seen in Guatemala. This work balances her Latin American travels with those of the Southwest.

Her works had been largely forgotten until gallery owner, Dutch Philips discovered some of her letters at an estate sale. Upon discovering her art, Dutch Phillips organized the first exhibition of sale of her work in over 40 years.

'''Her work could be strange, which added to her exotic persona. “Her subject matter was macabre, stuff like children in a cemetery flying kites,” Dow said. He described her as odd, “like most artists are.”''' [FWWeekly]