Helen Cartmell, Modernist Floral Arrangement in a Mod Vase 1957 Oil Painting 1957

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Helen was a well known Michigan artist with national and international acclaim for her oil paintings and sketches. She was … Read more Helen was a well known Michigan artist with national and international acclaim for her oil paintings and sketches. She was a member of many organizations including the Detroit Society of Women Painters and Sculptors, Detroit Institute of Arts Founders Society, Mt. Clemens Art Association and the Scarab Club. Throughout her life, she had many one-women art shows at galleries around Michigan and won many awards at numerous juried art shows in the region. Helen also worked as a Media Art Director at Wayne State University specializing in creating television graphics. During her early career development, Helen was thankful to have many mentors and later she mentored many other artists, teaching them techniques and her special sense of color. Helen had a passion for teaching and wanting to give back to the art community.
Helen was the middle daughter of traditional hard working Greek immigrants. Her father recognized early on that Helen had a talent for drawing and supported her development as a young artist. Helen remembered the sacrifices her family made for her to attend Cass Technical High School and then she received a scholarship to attend The Detroit Society of Arts and Crafts. During her life she also studied abroad in France, Italy, and Greece as well as attending numerous workshops throughout the United States. Both she and her late husband Neal loved to travel and he would be by her side, taking photographs, at many of these workshops.
Helen went to Cass Tech, that special local high school for the smart, artsy kids. Then she attended the Detroit Society of Arts and Crafts, later renamed the College for Creative Studies, the best art school in the Midwest. Robert Wyland is an alumnus.
Multiple fellowships at the Ossabaw Island Project in Georgia and LaNapoule, France were awarded to Helen. She studied in Italy. She painted in Greece. She also took numerous master classes with Jack Beal (the father of the New York Realist movement) and his artist wife Sondra Freckelton on their farm in New York. She took annual portrait workshops with Milton Kobayashi in Arizona for years. Helen's work was in public and private national and international collections. See less