American artist Helen LaFrance, November 4, 1919 – November 22, 2020
November 25, 2020 1:05 PM Subscribe
Black folk artist Helen LaFrance, who painted memories of her life in rural Kentucky, has died at 101.
Helen LaFrance painted before she could write. During her childhood in Western Kentucky, LaFrance's father, who owned his land in a time and place where sharecropping was the custom, and her mother, who first guided the brush in her daughter's hand, encouraged LaFrance's artistic talent. Child and mother made paints with dandelions, berries, and laundry bluing, and after chores were done, LaFrance was free to paint, carve, and quilt. The artist was to follow her mother's advice, "paint what you know," her entire career.
LaFrance ended her formal schooling early to work on the family farm, growing tobacco, corn, black-eyed peas, beans, peanuts and sorghum. After her mother's death, she left the farm for a variety of jobs: cook; hospital worker; child-carer; tobacco barn laborer; ceramic factory worker. LaFrance resumed her painting career in her 40s, and was working as an artist full-time by 1986. One of her first known public works is a mural in the St. James AME Church in Mayfield, KY.
The Kentucky Folk Art Center at Morehead State University "houses the world's most comprehensive collection of contemporary self-taught visual art made by artists from Kentucky." Selections from the Kentucky Folk Art Center's Permanent Collection, 1998 Kentucky Folk Art Center exhibition catalog of African-American folk art:
1990's Kentucky Farm Fields
1997's Saturday Night, Pete's Place
1993's Canning Peaches
Works by Helen LaFrance at artnet, gallery at dealer site, previous auctions at invaluable.com. An example of her wood carving. 1986's Plowing. River Baptism. Funeral in the Fog. Farm with the Yellow House. Children Sleeping. Church picnic paintings. 1996's Political Picnic.
Kathy Moses wrote about LaFrance in "Outsider Art of the South" and "Helen LaFrance: Folk Art Memories." 2012 Moses article, Memory Painting, the Work of Helen LaFrance, for Nashville Arts Magazine: In 1995, I had the pleasure of being introduced to self-taught Southern artist Helen LaFrance. An accomplished painter, quilter, wood carver, and Biblical interpreter, Helen LaFrance also has an exceptional ability to connect with the viewer emotionally through the memories they share. She paints scenes of a time and place that many recall but others respond to as well. On canvas, she transcribes the values and traditions she grew up with, the concept of family and church, the strong work ethic that was her model. These paintings fall into a category of American folk art known as memory painting. And memories, as we all know, give meaning to our own lives and to the lives of others when we share them.
2011 Folk Heritage Award, one of the Governor's Awards in the Arts presented by the Kentucky Arts Council, honoring LaFrance
2012 Vanderbilt Divinity hosts Helen LaFrance: Biblical Vision
2012 Oxford American's SoLost series: Helen LaFrance - "I'll Paint Something Worthwhile"
Helen LaFrance painted before she could write. During her childhood in Western Kentucky, LaFrance's father, who owned his land in a time and place where sharecropping was the custom, and her mother, who first guided the brush in her daughter's hand, encouraged LaFrance's artistic talent. Child and mother made paints with dandelions, berries, and laundry bluing, and after chores were done, LaFrance was free to paint, carve, and quilt. The artist was to follow her mother's advice, "paint what you know," her entire career.
LaFrance ended her formal schooling early to work on the family farm, growing tobacco, corn, black-eyed peas, beans, peanuts and sorghum. After her mother's death, she left the farm for a variety of jobs: cook; hospital worker; child-carer; tobacco barn laborer; ceramic factory worker. LaFrance resumed her painting career in her 40s, and was working as an artist full-time by 1986. One of her first known public works is a mural in the St. James AME Church in Mayfield, KY.
The Kentucky Folk Art Center at Morehead State University "houses the world's most comprehensive collection of contemporary self-taught visual art made by artists from Kentucky." Selections from the Kentucky Folk Art Center's Permanent Collection, 1998 Kentucky Folk Art Center exhibition catalog of African-American folk art:
1990's Kentucky Farm Fields
1997's Saturday Night, Pete's Place
1993's Canning Peaches
Works by Helen LaFrance at artnet, gallery at dealer site, previous auctions at invaluable.com. An example of her wood carving. 1986's Plowing. River Baptism. Funeral in the Fog. Farm with the Yellow House. Children Sleeping. Church picnic paintings. 1996's Political Picnic.
Kathy Moses wrote about LaFrance in "Outsider Art of the South" and "Helen LaFrance: Folk Art Memories." 2012 Moses article, Memory Painting, the Work of Helen LaFrance, for Nashville Arts Magazine: In 1995, I had the pleasure of being introduced to self-taught Southern artist Helen LaFrance. An accomplished painter, quilter, wood carver, and Biblical interpreter, Helen LaFrance also has an exceptional ability to connect with the viewer emotionally through the memories they share. She paints scenes of a time and place that many recall but others respond to as well. On canvas, she transcribes the values and traditions she grew up with, the concept of family and church, the strong work ethic that was her model. These paintings fall into a category of American folk art known as memory painting. And memories, as we all know, give meaning to our own lives and to the lives of others when we share them.
2011 Folk Heritage Award, one of the Governor's Awards in the Arts presented by the Kentucky Arts Council, honoring LaFrance
2012 Vanderbilt Divinity hosts Helen LaFrance: Biblical Vision
2012 Oxford American's SoLost series: Helen LaFrance - "I'll Paint Something Worthwhile"
That mural is stunning.
posted by Big Al 8000 at 5:45 PM on November 25, 2020 [1 favorite]
posted by Big Al 8000 at 5:45 PM on November 25, 2020 [1 favorite]
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