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VERONICA HELFENSTELLER (American, 1910-1964). Seven from a suite of eight together with two additional illustrations for "... (Total: 9 )
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Description
VERONICA HELFENSTELLER (American, 1910-1964)Seven from a suite of eight together with two additional illustrations for "The Centaur Plays Croquet", 1944
Gouache on paper
12-3/4 x 17 inches (32.4 x 43.2 cm) (each sheet)
Six signed: V Helfensteller
PROVENANCE:
From the Estate of Sam and Betsy Cantey.
EXHIBITION:
The Fort Worth Public Library, One-Woman Exhibition, May 1944 (complete set was exhibited).
Amon Carter Museum, Fort Worth, "Intimate Modernism: Fort Worth Circle Artists in the 1940s", February 16-May 11, 2008 (only the two illustrations apart from the suite were exhibited).
The cutting edge of visual art in 1940s Fort Worth is evident in the work of Veronica Helfensteller, an artist of the Fort Worth Circle - a dozen young men and women bound together by the pursuit of modernism. Helfensteller was the group's most experimental female painter, and her imagery often blended animal subjects with fantastical settings. Long before Cats appeared on Broadway, Helfensteller turned to T. S. Eliot's Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats, as well as gothic tales by Edgar Allan Poe, for inspiration. Her reputation as a fantasy painter surely played a role when local art patrons Sam and Betsy Cantey, in 1944, asked Helfensteller to bring The Centaur Plays Croquet, a classic Louisiana short story, to life in a series of eight insightful illustrations.
Set in the fictional town of Mimosa, Louisiana in 1884, The Centaur Plays Croquet was written by New Orleans author Lyle C. Saxon. It was published in 1927 in The American Caravan, an anthology of new American literature. Saxon's story drew immediate attention for its unusual structure and satirical content, qualities strongly hinted at by its formal title, "The Centaur Plays Croquet: The Strange Case of Mrs. John David Calander of Mimosa, Louisiana, and the Fabulous Monster Which She Kept as a Pet, Thereby Causing Great Scandal in the Community." Told through sworn testimony from six eyewitnesses, the story recounted an ill-fated love affair between a plantation owner's young wife, Ada Calander, and a wild centaur living in the swamps near the home Ada shared with her older husband. Each 'witness' recalled the story through the lens of their own religious, ethnic, and economic prejudice, leaving the reader with a decidedly mixed verdict on Ada Calander's behavior, her ultimate fate, and on life in rural Louisiana.
In May 1944, this collection of gouache illustrations, depicting significant encounters between Ada and the centaur, was included in a comprehensive exhibition of Veronica Helfensteller's work at the Fort Worth Public Library. At the time, Helfensteller described the Centaur collection as "a Christmas gift done for a friend," leaving the true purpose of Cantey's request unclear. Two of these works, "Reclining under a tree (they) played at chess and cards" and "Horace, she cried..." were exhibited in 2008 at the Amon Carter Museum of American Art in the exhibit entitled Intimate Modernism: Fort Worth Circle Artists in the 1940s (see plates 79 and 80 in the illustrated catalogue).
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