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Helen Savier DuMond was born and raised in Portland, Oregon
to a family of relative prominence, due in large part to the
growth and expansion of the timbre and shipping industries that
were dominating the western frontier at the turn of the century.
In her late teens, she moved to New York City, where, in 1893,
she enrolled in classes at the Art Students League. There she
met Frank DuMond, a notable art teacher and impressionist landscape
painter who became known as “the foremost art teacher of
his generation,” whose students included the likes of Georgia
O’Keefe, John Marin, and Norman Rockwell, and eventually
he became Helen’s husband. Frank and Helen’s painting
styles were considered by many to be “complimentary,”
and Helen often assisted him with his several mural commissions
and public exhibitions. In the late 1890’s, Helen travelled
to Paris where she studied at the Ecole des Beaux Arts, and exhibited
works at the Paris Salon in 1897 and 1898 respectively.
Like her husband Frank, Helen had a particular interest in
landscape painting, and in 1906 the couple moved to Old Lyme,
Connecticut, where Frank was appointed the Director of the Lyme
Summer School of Art, and Helen was able to practice her plein-air
landscapes. In was in fact in Lyme that the DuMonds were to make
their biggest mark, as the Lyme Summer School of Art ultimately
served as the precursor to the Lyme Academy of Fine Art.
Helen was also a lifetime member of the National Arts Club,
and Art Workers Club, and of the Catherine Wolfe Art Club. |
