Helen Stoller

7/30/05 - 9/1/05

Helen Stoller

Deborah Rothschild, senior curator of modern and contemporary art

The exhibition features colorful and lively works of collage and assemblage, as well as five gouache drawings. In her collages, Helen Stoller (American, b.1915) expresses a fascination with shape, color, texture, and balance, presented through everyday objects like newspaper clippings and sandpaper. This exhibition is presented as part of WCMA’s annual Summer Regional Artists Series, and was organized by Deborah Rothschild, senior curator of modern and contemporary art.

The gouache drawings included in the show highlight Stoller’s long association with the Berkshire region. Created soon after Stoller graduated from the Cooper Union School of Art, they are drawings for five wall murals commissioned in 1939 by the Works Progress Administration at the Adams, MA U.S. Post Office. Stoller’s murals no longer exist, but the exhibition includes a photograph of one of the murals by Stoller’s husband, well-known architectural photographer Ezra Stoller.

About the artist

Helen Stoller was born Helen Rubin in 1915 in New York. She graduated from the Cooper Union School of Art in 1937 and later taught there. Her work has been shown in New York City at the Brownstone Gallery, the Bodley Gallery, and the Ruth White Gallery, as well as in galleries and libraries throughout New York State. She lived in Williamstown until 2004 and currently resides in Cortland Manor, New York.