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Summary:
An interview with Helen Marjorie Windust Halper conducted 1994 Sept. 27, by Robert F. Brown, for the Archives of American Art.
Halper talks about her mother and father; childhood summers spent on the northwestern French coast where she got to know Max Bohm and his family; being in France during World War I; and time spent living in England. She discusses going to New York, in 1920, with her brother, and attending the Veltin School for Girls and the Dalton School; going to Provincetown, in 1925, with her mother; and Charles Hawthorne and his teaching methods.
She tells about studying color and abstraction with Vaclav Vytlacil at the Art Students League; drawing classes with Thomas Hart Benton; and extreme poverty of Edwin Dickinson and other Provincetown artists. She recounts meeting Nathan Halper in the 1930s and their marriage following World War II, his becoming an art dealer; and the success of his H.C. and H.C.E. Gallery during the 1950s and 1960s. Halper recalls several Provincetown artists, among them Frederick Waugh, Philip Malicoat, and Hans Hofmann.
Citation:
Quotes and excerpts must be cited as follows: Oral history interview with Helen Marjorie Windust Halper, 1994 Sept. 27. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Additional Forms:
Transcript is available on the Archives of American Art's website.
Funding:
Funding for the digital preservation of this interview was provided by a grant from the Save America's Treasures Program of the National Park Service.
Biography Note:
Helen Marjorie Windust Halper (1908- 1996) is a painter of Provincetown, Mass. Helen Halper is married to the art dealer Nathan Halper.
Language Note:
English .
Provenance:
This interview is part of the Archives of American Art Oral History Program, started in 1958 to document the history of the visual arts in the United States, primarily through interviews with artists, historians, dealers, critics and administrators.
Location Note:
Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, 750 9th St. NW, Washington, D.C. 20001
