Helen Torr

Helen S. "Reds" Torr (1886–1967) was an American early Modernist painter nicknamed "Reds" for her hair color. Torr worked alongside her artist husband Arthur Dove and friend Georgia O'Keeffe to develop a characteristically American style of Modernism in the 1920s.

Early life Torr was born in Roxborough, a neighborhood in Philadelphia, in 1886. In 1906, Helen Torr won a scholarship to the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, where she studied under William Merritt Chase. She also studied at Drexel University.

Career Throughout her career, Torr tended to focus on the creation of both oil paintings and charcoal-based drawings. Torr's work was exhibited publicly only twice during her life, one of those at Alfred Stieglitz's gallery An American Place in 1933 as part of a group show. Torr was reluctant to put her works in exhibitions and found encouragement through her friendships. Most of her work was not shown during her lifetime.

In 1980 the Graham Gallery in New York held a solo exhibition of her work. Some of her works are currently held in the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Boston Museum of Fine Arts.

The cottage in which she and Dove resided was acquired in 1998 by the Heckscher Museum of Art in Huntington, New York. In 2000, it was accepted into the Historic Artists’ Homes and Studios Program administered by the National Trust for Historic Preservation.

Torr was reluctant to put her works in exhibitions and found encouragement through her friendships. Most of her work was not shown during her lifetime. Throughout her career, Torr tended to focus on the creation of both oil paintings and charcoal-based drawings.

Personal Her first marriage was to the cartoonist Clive Weed. Torr died in Bayshore, Long Island, New York, in 1967.

List of works Evening SoundsMedium: Oil on composition boardDimensions: 36.19 x 25.4 cm (14 1/4 x 10 in.)Creation date: 1925-30 Crimson and Green LeavesMedium: Oil on plywoodDimensions: 14 1/8 x 12 1/2 in. (35.9 x 31.8 cm)Creation date: 1927 center Purple and Green LeavesMedium: Oil on copper mounted on boardDimensions: 20 1/4 x 15 1/4 in. (51.4 x 38.7 cm)Creation date: 1927 center Houses on A BargeMedium: Oil on canvasDimensions: 16 x 21 in. (40.6 x 53.3 cm)Creation date: 1929

Exhibitions There are many public collections in the Heckscher Museum of Art, Huntington Long Island, New York; New Jersey State Museum, Trenton, New Jersey; Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, California; and the Sheldon Museum of Art, Lincoln Nebraska. Huntington, New York. "Helen Torr: 1886-1967," June 3, 1972–July 9, 1972. New York. Graham Gallery. "Helen Torr," January 30, 1972–February 21, 1998. New York. Graham Gallery. "Helen Torr, 1886–1967. In Private Life, Mrs. Arthur Dove," March 25–May 17, 1980, no. 7 (lent by the Estate of Helen Torr). New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "American Still Life: 1915–1950," February 1, 1995–January 28, 1996, no catalogue. New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Arthur Dove/Helen Torr: Land and Water," February 14–June 14, 1998, no catalogue. Albany. New York State Museum. "Twentieth-Century American Landscapes from The Metropolitan Museum of Art," May 29–November 4, 2001, no catalogue. Oxford, England. Ashmolean Museum. "America's Cool Modernism: O'Keeffe to Hopper," March 23–July 22, 2018, no. 84.