Helen Gerardia (1903–1988) was a Russian Empire-born American painter.

Early life and education

She was born in

Ekaterinoslav Dnipro, previously called Dnipropetrovsk from 1926 until May 2016, is Ukraine's fourth-largest city, with about one million inhabitants. It is located in the eastern part of Ukraine, southeast of the Ukrainian capital Kyiv on the Dnieper Rive ...

Russian Empire The Russian Empire was an empire and the final period of the Russian monarchy from 1721 to 1917, ruling across large parts of Eurasia. It succeeded the Tsardom of Russia following the Treaty of Nystad, which ended the Great Northern War. ...

in 1903. She immigrated to the United States and studied under Hans Hofmann from 1946 to 1947.

Career

During her career, she painted and also engaged in

lithography Lithography () is a planographic method of printing originally based on the immiscibility of oil and water. The printing is from a stone (lithographic limestone) or a metal plate with a smooth surface. It was invented in 1796 by the German a ...

and

etching Etching is traditionally the process of using strong acid or mordant to cut into the unprotected parts of a metal surface to create a design in intaglio (incised) in the metal. In modern manufacturing, other chemicals may be used on other types ...

. She eventually founded the Gerardia Workshop, where she taught a variety of mediums. Gerardia was a member of the Vectors artist group. From 1967 until 1969, she was president of the American Society of Contemporary Artists. She exhibited her work at the

Metropolitan Museum of Art The Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York City, colloquially "the Met", is the largest art museum in the Americas. Its permanent collection contains over two million works, divided among 17 curatorial departments. The main building at 1000 ...

, where her work was described as showing "good arrangement", and being "visually pleasing." She was called an "industrious artist", by one critic.

Work

She was primarily a painter, and participated in the

Abstract expressionist Abstract expressionism is a post–World War II art movement in American painting, developed in New York City in the 1940s. It was the first specifically American movement to achieve international influence and put New York at the center of the ...

movement early in her career while studying under Hans Hofmann. In the early 1950s, she leaned more towards the Cubism movement. Gerardia used geometric shapes in much of her work and used the colors black and white primarily. She started incorporating more color into her paintings starting in 1959, including lavender, which renders heavily into her works of the early 1960s. She emphasized

negative space Negative space, in art, is the empty space around and between the subject(s) of an image. Negative space may be most evident when the space around a subject, not the subject itself, forms an interesting or artistically relevant shape, and s ...

frequently in her work, which was featured prominently due to her choice use of color.

Later life and legacy

She died in 1988 in New York,

USA The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...

Notable collections

*"Ballerina" – 1951, oil on canvas, Smithsonian American Art Museum

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Gerardia, Helen Artists from Dnipro 1903 births 1988 deaths American women painters Russian women painters Russian women artists 20th-century American painters 20th-century American women artists Emigrants from the Russian Empire to the United States