biographie de Helen Alton SAWYER (1900-1999)

Birth place: Wash., DC

Addresses: North Truro, MA; Sarasota, FL

Profession: Painter, writer, lithographer, teacher

Studied: Masters Sch., Dobbs Ferry; NAD Sch., with Charles Hawthorne; Johansen; Sawyer.

Exhibited: PAFA Ann., 1923-25, 1932-36, 1940-51; Hudson Valley A. Inst., 1935 (prize), 1936 (prize); Fine Prints of the Year, 1937; AIC, from 1925, 1936 (prize); Carnegie Nat. & Int., Pittsburgh; Am. Painting Today, MMA; Century of Prog., Chicago, 1933-34; Corcoran Gal. biennials, 1937-47 (6 times); San Fran. World's Fair, 1939-40; NYWF, 1939; Ringling Mus. (Award for The Bareback Rider); AIC (first hon. mention for "Trees by the Turn"); Atlanta Mus. (first prize for landscape & still life); Frank Oehlschlaeger Gal., Sarasota, FL.

Member: ANA, 1937; Provincetown AA; Yonkers AA; Hudson Valley AA; NAC; Fla Artists Group (pres., 1953-1955); Audubon Artists; NAWA

Work: WMAA; PAFA; LOC; John Herron AI; Vanderpoel Coll.; TMA; Atlanta Mus.; Indianapolis Mus. Commissions: Paintings, Blue Ridge Spring, Chesapeake & Ohio RR, New York, First Nat. City Bank & Circus Parade, G. Lister Carlyle.

Comments: Preferred media: oils, watercolors. The wife of Jerry Farnsworth, she was active in Provincetown in 1927, and 1954-72. Author: "Peter Sawyer Master Mariner," in Cape Cod Compass; "Paintings in Oils on Paper," in Am. Artist; Living Among the Modern Primitives, Scribner.

Sources: WW73; papers in Archives and Archives of American Art; Falk, Exh. Record Series.