Helen Gee (1919–2004) was an American photography gallery owner, co-owner of the Limelight in

New York City, New York New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

from 1954 to 1961.Loke, Margaret
"Helen Gee, Pioneer in Sales of Photos as Art, Dies at 85"
''The New York Times'', 13 October 2004, accessed on 21 November 2013Aletti, Vince
"Helen Gee 1919–2004"
''Village Voice'' (New York City), 12 October 2004, accessed on 21 November 2013 It was New York City's first important post-war photography gallery, pioneering sales of photographs as art. In the late 1970s, Gee worked as a photography curator, lecturer and writer.

Life and work

Gee was born Helen Charlotte Wimmer on April 29, 1919 in

Jersey City, New Jersey Jersey City is the second-most populous city in the U.S. state of New Jersey, after Newark. at fifteen she moved to New York City to finish high school and enrol in

WPA WPA may refer to: Computing *Wi-Fi Protected Access, a wireless encryption standard *Windows Product Activation, in Microsoft software licensing * Wireless Public Alerting (Alert Ready), emergency alerts over LTE in Canada * Windows Performance An ...

art classes through which she met, and moved in with, established modernist painter, Yun Gee (1906-1963).Staff
"Helen Gee, 85; Her Gallery Pioneered Sales of Photographs as Art"
''Los Angeles Times'', 14 October 2004, accessed on 21 November 2013 They married seven years later in 1942 and had a daughter, artist Li-lan in 1943, and were subsequently divorced in 1947 after Yun Gee's incarceration due to his mental illness. She later married Kevin Sullivan, but that ended in divorce. In the 1950s, she attended shows curated by

Edward Steichen Edward Jean Steichen (March 27, 1879 – March 25, 1973) was a Luxembourgish American photographer, painter, and curator, renowned as one of the most prolific and influential figures in the history of photography. Steichen was credited with tr ...

at the

Museum of Modern Art The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It plays a major role in developing and collecting modern art, and is often identified as one of ...

, which inspired her interest in photography. After finding work as a photo restorer in the late 1940s, Gee taught herself specialist transparency retouching for commercial and advertising photographers and was able to establish herself in a good apartment and to send Li-lan to private school. Helen Gee bought a

Rolleiflex Rolleiflex is the name of a long-running and diverse line of high-end cameras originally made by the German company Franke & Heidecke, and later Rollei, Rollei-Werke. History The "Rolleiflex" name is most commonly used to refer to Rollei's pr ...

at the suggestion of client Paul Radkai, and enrolled in photography classes with

Alexey Brodovitch Alexey Vyacheslavovich Brodovitch (also Brodovich; be, Аляксей Брадовіч, russian: Алексе́й Вячесла́вович Бродо́вич; 1898 – April 15, 1971) was a Russian-born American photographer, designer ...

, then

Lisette Model Lisette Model (born Elise Amelie Felicie Stern; November 10, 1901 – March 30, 1983) was an Austrian-born American photographer primarily known for the frank humanism of her street photography. A prolific photographer in the 1940s and a member ...

and finally

Sid Grossman Sid Grossman (June 25, 1913 in Manhattan – December 31, 1955 in Provincetown) was an American photographer, teacher, and social activist. Life Sid Grossman was the younger son of Morris and Ethel Grossman. He attended the City College of ...

. With that experience she decided to open a gallery instead of becoming a photographer, and with her own finance she founded and managed the Limelight Gallery in 1954, and in 1956 she traveled briefly to Spain and France with Li-lan after the two had won a television competition.

Limelight Gallery 1954-61

In May 1954 Gee opened New York City's first important post-war photography gallery.Warren, B., & Gee, H. (1997). Helen Gee's Limelight: An Interview. In ''On Paper'', 2(1), 22-27. With initial assistance of her sister Ella and brother in-law, she took a ten-year lease at a very low $225 a month on a building on Seventh Avenue South and Barrow Street. Limelight's 20 by 25 foot gallery space, its walls white and the floor black, was supported by a coffee shop seating 150 patrons with revenue from the sale of food and drink in a dining separated from the gallery by a red partition. With most prints selling for between $25 and $60 each (equivalent to $200-$500 in 2019), takings from the gallery sales rarely met expenses as photography was not considered a collectible art form until the 1970s. Nevertheless, the group show Great Photographs sold nearly half of its 45 pictures on exhibition. Gee took 25% commission, and sales up to the gallery's closure totalled about $5,000. Limelight provided many of its exhibitors with their first show, or their first show in New York. The exhibitions attracted regular reviews from John "Jack" Deschin in the ''

New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...

,'' and less often from "John Adam Knight" (Pierre de Rohan) in the ''

New York Post The ''New York Post'' (''NY Post'') is a conservative daily tabloid newspaper published in New York City. The ''Post'' also operates NYPost.com, the celebrity gossip site PageSix.com, and the entertainment site Decider.com. It was established ...

,'' Mabel Scacheri of the ''

New York World-Telegram The ''New York World-Telegram'', later known as the ''New York World-Telegram and The Sun'', was a New York City newspaper from 1931 to 1966. History Founded by James Gordon Bennett Sr. as ''The Evening Telegram'' in 1867, the newspaper began ...

'' and George Wright in ''

The Village Voice ''The Village Voice'' is an American news and culture paper, known for being the country's first alternative newsweekly. Founded in 1955 by Dan Wolf, Ed Fancher, John Wilcock, and Norman Mailer, the ''Voice'' began as a platform for the crea ...

.'' The latter publication held the first three

Obie Awards The Obie Awards or Off-Broadway Theater Awards are annual awards originally given by ''The Village Voice'' newspaper to theatre artists and groups in New York City. In September 2014, the awards were jointly presented and administered with the A ...

ceremonies in the café. The café and gallery was a popular meeting place for commercial, press, freelance, magazine and street photographers of the era, not only the exhibitors, but also other big names of the period;

Diane Arbus Diane Arbus (; née Nemerov; March 14, 1923 – July 26, 1971
" The New York ...

Philippe Halsman Philippe Halsman ( lv, Filips Halsmans, german: Philipp Halsmann; 2 May 1906 – 25 June 1979) was an American portrait photographer. He was born in Riga in the part of the Russian Empire which later became Latvia, and died in New York City. Li ...

Cornell Capa Cornell Capa (born Kornél Friedmann; April 10, 1918 – May 23, 2008) was a Hungarian American photographer, member of Magnum Photos, photo curator, and the younger brother of photo-journalist and war photographer Robert Capa. Graduating from Imr ...

Weegee Arthur (Usher) Fellig (June 12, 1899 – December 26, 1968), known by his pseudonym Weegee, was a photography, photographer and photojournalism, photojournalist, known for his stark black and white street photography in New York City. Weegee w ...

(whom Gee banned), Lew Parrella, Morris Jaffe, Jerry Danzig, David Heath, Suzy Harris,

Lee Friedlander Lee Friedlander (born July 14, 1934) is an American photographer and artist. In the 1960s and 1970s, Friedlander evolved an influential and often imitated visual language of urban "social landscape," with many of his photographs including fragm ...

, Sid Kaplan, John Cohen, Morris Engel, Walt Silver, Harold Feinstein, Paul Seligman, Martin Dain, Leo Stashin,

Norman Rothschild Norman Rothschild (1913-1995) was an American photographer, artist, and writer. Rothschild arrived in the United States from Germany at the age of 5 1/2 with his parents. He became a studio and darkroom assistant at the age of 14. For 33 years he ...

, and Victor Obsatz. During the showing of ''The Family of Man'' at MoMA (1955), several who were included congregated at Limelight; Arthur Lavine, May Mirin,

Hella Hammid Hella Hammid (15 July 1921 – 1 May 1992) was an American photographer whose career included teaching at UCLA. Her freelance photographs appeared in diverse publications including ''Life'', ''Ebony'', ''The Sun'' and ''The New York Times''. Her ...

Simpson Kalisher Simpson Kalisher (July 27, 1926 – June 13, 2023) was an American professional photojournalist and street photographer whose independent project ''Railroad Men'' attracted critical attention and is regarded as historically significant. Early ...

, Ray Jacobs,

Ruth Orkin Ruth (or its variants) may refer to: Places France * Château de Ruthie, castle in the commune of Aussurucq in the Pyrénées-Atlantiques département of France Switzerland * Ruth, a hamlet in Cologny United States * Ruth, Alabama * Ruth, Ar ...

, and Ed Wallowitch. Although the gallery closed in 1961 due to financial and union pressure, it had pioneered sales of photographs as art, showing the works of prominent contemporary and historic photographers.Helen Gee / Limelight Gallery archive, 1919-2004. AG 74. Center for Creative Photography, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ. https://ccp.arizona.edu/sites/default/files/finding-aid-pdfs/ag74_gee_limelight_0.pdf

Limelight exhibition chronology

In her gallery Helen Gee organised and presented these sixty-one exhibitions:

1954

* Joseph Breitenbach, ''Korea'', May 13- June 27 * Rudolph Burckhardt, June 29- August 15 *

Louis Stettner Louis Stettner (November 7, 1922 – October 13, 2016) was an American photographer of the 20th century whose work included streetscapes, portraits and architectural images of New York and Paris. His work has been highly regarded because of its hum ...

, August 17- September 27 * Minor White, September 28- November 3 * Grant La Farge, ''New England in the 1890s'', November 6–30 *''Great Photographs:

Berenice Abbott Berenice Alice Abbott (July 17, 1898 – December 9, 1991) was an American photographer best known for her portraits of between-the-wars 20th century cultural figures, New York City photographs of architecture and urban design of the 1930s, and ...

Ansel Adams Ansel Easton Adams (February 20, 1902 – April 22, 1984) was an American landscape photographer and environmentalist known for his black-and-white images of the American West. He helped found Group f/64, an association of photographers advoca ...

, Edouard Boubat,

Bill Brandt Bill Brandt (born Hermann Wilhelm Brandt; 2 May 1904 – 20 December 1983)Paul DelanyBill Brandt: A Life was a British photographer and photojournalist. Born in Germany, Brandt moved to England, where he became known for his images of British ...

Brassaï Brassaï (; pseudonym of Gyula Halász; 9 September 1899 – 8 July 1984) was a Hungarian–French photographer, sculptor, medalist, writer, and filmmaker who rose to international fame in France in the 20th century. He was one of the numerous H ...

Manuel Álvarez Bravo Manuel Álvarez Bravo (February 4, 1902 – October 19, 2002) was a Mexican artistic photographer and one of the most important figures in 20th century Latin American photography. He was born and raised in Mexico City. While he took art classes a ...

, Harry Callahan,

Imogen Cunningham Imogen Cunningham (; April 12, 1883 – June 23, 1976) was an American photographer known for her botanical photography, nudes, and industrial landscapes. Cunningham was a member of the California-based Group f/64, known for its dedication to t ...

Robert Doisneau Robert Doisneau (; 14 April 1912 – 1 April 1994) was a French photographer. From the 1930s, he photographed the streets of Paris. He was a champion of humanist photography and with Henri Cartier-Bresson a pioneer of photojournalism. Dois ...

Robert Frank Robert Frank (November 9, 1924 – September 9, 2019) was a Swiss photographer and documentary filmmaker, who became an American binational. His most notable work, the 1958 book titled ''The Americans'', earned Frank comparisons to a modern-da ...

Izis Israëlis Bidermanas (17 January 1911 – 16 May 1980 in Paris), who worked under the name of Izis, was a Lithuanian-Jewish photographer who worked in France and is best known for his photographs of French circuses and of Paris. Biography Born i ...

, Gotthard Schuh,

W. Eugene Smith William Eugene Smith (December 30, 1918 – October 15, 1978) was an American photojournalist.Peacock, Scot. "W(illiam) Eugene Smith." ''Contemporary Authors Online'', Gale, 2003. ''Biography In Context'' He has been described as "perhaps the si ...

Paul Strand Paul Strand (October 16, 1890 – March 31, 1976) was an American photographer and filmmaker who, along with fellow modernist photographers like Alfred Stieglitz and Edward Weston, helped establish photography as an art form in the 20th century. ...

Jakob Tuggener Jakob Tuggener (7 February 1904, Zurich – 29 April 1988) was a Swiss photographer, filmmaker and painter. Early life, education and training Son of Jacob Arnold, lithographer, and Anna Barbara Sennhauser, Jakob Tuggener took his first photographs ...

, Sabine Weiss,

Edward Weston Edward Henry Weston (March 24, 1886 – January 1, 1958) was a 20th-century American photographer. He has been called "one of the most innovative and influential American photographers..." and "one of the masters of 20th century photography." ...

, and Minor White,'' December 1–30

1955

* David Vestal, January 3-February 14 *

Arnold Newman Arnold Abner Newman (March 3, 1918 – June 6, 2006) was an American photographer, noted for his "environmental portraits" of artists and politicians. He was also known for his carefully composed abstract still life images. Early life and caree ...

, February 15-March 19 *

Eliot Porter Eliot Furness Porter (December 6, 1901 – November 2, 1990) was an American photographer best known for his color photographs of nature.Amon Carter MuseumEliot Porter collection guide. Retrieved September 12, 2008. Early life and education Porter ...

, March 21-April 17 *

Alfred Stieglitz Alfred Stieglitz (January 1, 1864 – July 13, 1946) was an American photographer and modern art promoter who was instrumental over his 50-year career in making photography an accepted art form. In addition to his photography, Stieglitz was kno ...

Dorothy Norman Dorothy Norman (née Stecker; 28 March 1905 – 12 April 1997) was an American photographer, writer, editor, arts patron and advocate for social change. Biography Born Dorothy Stecker in Philadelphia to a prominent Jewish family, she was educate ...

, ''Portraits of Each Other'', April 19-May 7 *

Dan Weiner Dan Weiner (1919–1959) was an American photojournalist, working largely for '' Fortune'' magazine. Weiner specialized in photographs of America at work. Life and work He was born in New York City. He studied painting at the Art Students League a ...

, ''Italy'', May 10- June 7 * Suzy Harris, June 10- July 25 * Group show: ''Fourteen Photographers'', July 28- September 2 *

Wynn Bullock Wynn Bullock (April 18, 1902 – November 16, 1975) was an American photographer whose work is included in over 90 major museum collections around the world. He received substantial critical acclaim during his lifetime, published numerous books an ...

, September 5- October 8 * Laszlo Moholy-Nagy, October 11-November 19 *

Édouard Boubat Édouard Boubat (; 13 September 1923 – 30 June 1999) was a French photojournalist and art photographer. Life and work Boubat was born in Montmartre, Paris. He studied typography and graphic arts at the École Estienne and worked for a print ...

, November 22- December 31

1956

Leon Levinstein Leon Levinstein (1910–1988) was an American street photographer best known for his work documenting everyday street life in New York City from the 1950s through the 1980s. In 1975 Levinstein was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship from the John Si ...

, ''New York'', January 3-February 11 *

, February 14-March 31 *

Esther Bubley Esther Bubley (February 16, 1921 – March 16, 1998) was an American photographer who specialized in expressive photos of ordinary people in everyday lives. She worked for several agencies of the American government and her work also featured in s ...

, April 3-May 5 *

, May 8-June 25 * Sabine Weiss, June 28-July 29 *''Footlights and Spotlights:Theatrical Photographs of the American Stage, 1860- 1900'', loan exhibition from

George Eastman House The George Eastman Museum, also referred to as ''George Eastman House, International Museum of Photography and Film'', the world's oldest museum dedicated to photography and one of the world's oldest film archives, opened to the public in 1949 in ...

, August 1- September 19 * Ken Heyman, September 21-October 28 *

, ''South Africa'', October 30-December 2 *

Eugène Atget Eugène Atget (; 12 February 1857 – 4 August 1927) was a French ''flâneur'' and a pioneer of documentary photography, noted for his determination to document all of the architecture and street scenes of Paris before their disappearance to mod ...

, December 4-January 6

1957

, January 8-February 17 * Frank Paulin, February 19- April 2 *

Ellen Auerbach Ellen (Rosenberg) Auerbach (May 20, 1906 – July 30, 2004) was a German-born American photographer who is best remembered for her innovative artwork for the ringl+pit studio in Berlin during the Weimar Republic. Early life Auerbach (born Ell ...

, ''Madonnas and Marketplaces'', April 4-May 19 *

Elliott Erwitt Elliott Erwitt (born Elio Romano Erwitt, July 26, 1928) is a French-born American advertising and documentary photographer known for his black and white candid photos of ironic and absurd situations within everyday settings. He has been a member ...

, May 24-July 7 * Morris H. Jaffe, July 9-August 18 *''Lyrical and Accurate'', loan exhibition from George Eastman House, designed by Minor White, August 20- September 28 *

, October I- November 10 * John Cohen, ''Peru'', November 12-December 15 *

, ''Portraits of the Twenties'', December 17- January 26

1958

* David Seymour.html" ;"title="Chim"Seymour">Chim"Seymour, ''Chirn's Children'', January 28- February 25 * Rudolph Burckhardt / George Montgomery, February 27- April 10 * Ken Heyman, ''Bali, Japan, Hong Kong,'' April 12- May 25 *

Bert Stern Bertram Stern (October 3, 1929 – June 26, 2013) was an American commercial photographer. Biography Stern was the son of Jewish immigrants and grew up in Brooklyn. His father worked as a children's portrait photographer. After dropping out of h ...

, May 27-July 20 * James Karales, ''Rendville, USA'', July 24- August 31 * Group show, September 3–30 * Harold Feinstein, October 2-November 15 * Gerda Peterich, ''Dance Portraits'' November 18- December 31

1959

, January 5-February 28 * Harry Lapow, March 3-April 12 *

, ''Russia and Eastern Europe'', April 14-May 12 *''The History of Photography'', loan exhibition from George Eastman House, May 15-June 30 * Group show: ''Seven Europeans,'' July 2- August 13 * Group show: ''Images of Love'', August 15-September 30 *

, ''The Eye of Paris'', October 5–31 * Group show, November 2- December 13 *

Louis Faurer Louis Faurer (August 28, 1916 – March 2, 2001) was an American candid or street photographer. He was a quiet artist who never achieved the broad public recognition that his best-known contemporaries did; however, the significance and caliber of ...

, December 15-January 18

1960-1

*''Photographs by Professors: Lou Block, Van Deren Coke, Allen Downs,

Walter Rosenblum Walter A. Rosenblum (1919–2006) was an American photographer. He photographed the World War II D-Day landing at Normandy in 1944. He was the first Allied photographer to enter the liberated Dachau concentration camp. He received several militar ...

, Aaron Siskind,

Henry Holmes Smith Henry Holmes Smith (1909, Bloomington, Indiana–1986) was an American photographer and a fine art photography teacher. He was inspired by the work that had been done at the German Bauhaus and in 1937 was invited to teach photography at the New Bau ...

, and Minor White'', January 19-February 29 *

Ralph Hattersley Ralph M. Hattersley, Jr. (1921-2000) was an American photographic educator, commentator, journalist and photographer. Early life and education Ralph M. Hattersley, Jr. (1921-2000) was born on March 31, 1921 in Montana where he grew up in Conrad. A ...

, March 1–27 * Jerry Liebling, April 1-May 15 *

, May 17-June 26 *

Gordon Parks Gordon Roger Alexander Buchanan Parks (November 30, 1912 – March 7, 2006) was an American photographer, composer, author, poet, and film director, who became prominent in U.S. documentary photojournalism in the 1940s through 1970s—particu ...

, June 28-August 7 * Jack Smith, August 9-September 11 * Group show, September 13-October 16 *

Claudia Andujar Claudia Andujar (born June 12, 1931) is a Swiss-born Brazilian photographer and activist. Life The daughter of a Hungarian Jewish father and a Swiss mother, she was born Claudine Haas in Neuchâtel, Switzerland. She grew up in the city of Or ...

, October 18-Novernber 8 *

Paul Caponigro Paul Caponigro (born December 7, 1932), is an American photographer from Boston, Massachusetts. Early life Caponigro started having interests in photography at age 13. However, he also had a strong passion in music and began to study music at B ...

/ Minor White, November 10-December 14 *

Julia Margaret Cameron Julia Margaret Cameron (''née'' Pattle; 11 June 1815 – 26 January 1879) was a British photographer who is considered one of the most important portraitists of the 19th century. She is known for her soft-focus close-ups of famous Victorian m ...

, December 16, 1960 – January 31, 1961

Exhibitions about Limelight

* 1977 ''Helen Gee and the Limelight: A Pioneering Photography Gallery of the Fifties'', Carlton Gallery, New York, February 12-March 8, 1977. *2001 ''Helen Gee and the Limelight: The Birth of the Photography Gallery, 1954-1961'' Stephen Daiter Gallery, Chicago. *2007 ''Limelight Gallery and Coffeehouse, 1954-61'', Triple Candie Gallery, 500 West 148th Street, New York, New York, Feb 8 - March 18, 2007.

''Limelight: A Memoir''

In 1997, Gee published her autobiography, itself titled ''Limelight: A Memoir'', reissued in 2016 by ''

Aperture In optics, an aperture is a hole or an opening through which light travels. More specifically, the aperture and focal length of an optical system determine the cone angle of a bundle of rays that come to a focus in the image plane. An opt ...

'' with an introduction by Denise Bethel (formerly Chair of Photographs and Americas, Sotheby's New York). Covering mostly her creation and running of Limelight Gallery, the book provides contemporary insights—and gossip—about the society of

Greenwich Village Greenwich Village ( , , ) is a neighborhood on the west side of Lower Manhattan in New York City, bounded by 14th Street to the north, Broadway to the east, Houston Street to the south, and the Hudson River to the west. Greenwich Village ...

of the period, into the lives and personalities of a number of important photographers including

and

, notes the effect of

McCarthyism McCarthyism is the practice of making false or unfounded accusations of subversion and treason, especially when related to anarchism, communism and socialism, and especially when done in a public and attention-grabbing manner. The term origin ...

on artists' output, and provides a balanced appraisal of

's ''

The Family of Man ''The Family of Man'' was an ambitious exhibition of 503 photography, photographs from 68 countries curated by Edward Steichen, the director of the New York City Museum of Modern Art's (MoMA) Department of Photography. According to Steichen, ...

'' which launched at the

the year following Limelight's opening, and increased attention to the medium.

Later career

Gee married

Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...

professor, Kevin Sullivan, in 1959. Having committed all her own funds to the gallery and still in debt, Gee sold and closed Limelight on January 31, 1961, after a show of the work of

. The new owners continued showing photographs for a short period and, failing to attract reviews, soon discontinued them and in turn sold up in less than a year. Her marriage to Sullivan ended in divorce around this time, but Gee continued to reside and work in Greenwich Village as an independent art agent and as a dealer for both United States and international clients in prints, sculpture, and paintings, and specialising in erotic Japanese

Shunga is a type of Japanese erotic art typically executed as a kind of ukiyo-e, often in woodblock print format. While rare, there are also extant erotic painted handscrolls which predate ukiyo-e. Translated literally, the Japanese word ''shunga' ...

prints. From May 3–31, 1969 she made a trip to

Kyoto Kyoto (; Japanese: , ''Kyōto'' ), officially , is the capital city of Kyoto Prefecture in Japan. Located in the Kansai region on the island of Honshu, Kyoto forms a part of the Keihanshin metropolitan area along with Osaka and Kobe. , the ci ...

, Japan. In 1969 she sponsored a Vietnamese foster child, Nguyen Thi My Le through the Foster Parents Plan Inc., with whom she corresponded until 1972, the letters being translated by the organisation. She again visited Japan in 1975 as a guest of

Tokyo Shimbun ''The Tokyo Shimbun'' (東京新聞, ''Tōkyō Shinbun'', literally ''Tokyo Newspaper'') is a Japanese newspaper published by The Chunichi Shimbun Company. The group publishes newspapers under the brand name of The Tokyo Shimbun in the Tokyo Metr ...

, a newspaper that sponsored the

Yasuo Kuniyoshi was a Japanese-American painter, photographer and printmaker. Biography Kuniyoshi was born on September 1, 1889 in Okayama, Japan. He immigrated to the United States in 1906, choosing not to attend military school in Japan. Kuniyoshi original ...

exhibit, and she returned in 1986. She also visited China during April 5–26, 1976 touring with the US-China People's Friendship Association. In the late 1970s, Gee worked as a photography teacher and lecturer at

Parsons School of Design Parsons School of Design, known colloquially as Parsons, is a private art and design college located in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of New York City. Founded in 1896 after a group of progressive artists broke away from established Manhatt ...

, and as a

curator A curator (from la, cura, meaning "to take care") is a manager or overseer. When working with cultural organizations, a curator is typically a "collections curator" or an "exhibitions curator", and has multifaceted tasks dependent on the parti ...

and writer. In 1979 she curated ''Steiglitz and the Photo Secession,'' a reconstruction of the

Photo-Secession The Photo-Secession was an early 20th century movement that promoted photography as a fine art in general and photographic pictorialism in particular. A group of photographers, led by Alfred Stieglitz and F. Holland Day in the early 20th centur ...

exhibition held March 5–22, 1902 at the

National Arts Club The National Arts Club is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit and members club on Gramercy Park, Manhattan, New York City. It was founded in 1898 by Charles DeKay, an art and literary critic of the ''New York Times'' to "stimulate, foster, and promote public ...

, New York, for the

New Jersey State Museum The New Jersey State Museum is located at 195-205 West State Street in Trenton, New Jersey. It serves a broad region between New York City and Philadelphia. The museum's collections include natural history specimens, archaeological and ethnograph ...

and the touring ''Photography of the Fifties: An American Perspective,'' for which she wrote the catalogue essay, for the

Center for Creative Photography The Center for Creative Photography (CCP), established in 1975 and located on the University of Arizona's Tucson campus, is a research facility and archival repository containing the full archives of over sixty of the most famous American pho ...

. In 1983, Gee was invited by Michael Spano, director of the Midtown Y Photography Gallery, onto its newly formed board of advisors made up of significant members of the photographic community, including Aaron Siskind,

Arthur Leipzig Arthur Leipzig (October 25, 1918 – December 5, 2014) was an American photographer who specialized in street photography and was known for his photographs of New York City. Career Leipzig was born in Brooklyn. After sustaining a serious injury to ...

Larry Fink Laurence Douglas Fink (born November 2, 1952) is an American billionaire businessman. He is the chairman and CEO of BlackRock, an American multinational investment management corporation. BlackRock is the largest money-management firm in the w ...

, and Jeffrey Hoone. Helen Gee died of pneumonia on October 10, 2004, in Manhattan, New York, N.Y. Gee's archive of her work and records pertaining to the Limelight Gallery are located at the

at the

University of Arizona The University of Arizona (Arizona, U of A, UArizona, or UA) is a public land-grant research university in Tucson, Arizona. Founded in 1885 by the 13th Arizona Territorial Legislature, it was the first university in the Arizona Territory. T ...

Tucson, Arizona , "(at the) base of the black ill , nicknames = "The Old Pueblo", "Optics Valley", "America's biggest small town" , image_map = , mapsize = 260px , map_caption = Interactive map ...

Publications

*''Limelight: a Greenwich Village Photography Gallery and Coffeehouse in the Fifties: A Memoir.'' Albuquerque:

University of New Mexico The University of New Mexico (UNM; es, Universidad de Nuevo México) is a public research university in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Founded in 1889, it is the state's flagship academic institution and the largest by enrollment, with over 25,400 ...

, 1997. . **''Limelight: a Greenwich Village Photography Gallery and Coffeehouse in the 1950s.'' New York:

, 2016. . With an introduction by Denise Bethel. * Gee, H. (1991). 'Limelight: Remembering Gene Smith'. In ''American Art'', 5(4), 10–19. *Stourdzé, S., Gee, H., Coleman, A. D., & Levinstein, L. (2000). ''Leon Levinstein''. Paris: Scheer.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Gee, Helen 1919 births 2014 deaths American art curators American women curators Photography curators American women artists Photography museums and galleries in the United States 21st-century American women