Quick Facts
Biography
Helen S. Torr (1886–1967) was an early American Modernist painter. Known as "Reds" because of her hair color, Torr worked alongside other artists, namely her husband Arthur Dove and friend Georgia O'Keeffe, to develop a characteristically American style of Modernism in the 1920s.
Biography
Early life
Torr was born in Roxbury, 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; later, she would go on to study at Drexel University. Her first marriage was to the cartoonist Clive Weed. 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.
Relationship with Arthur Dove
Torr met fellow artist Arthur Dove in Westport, Connecticut, which resulted in both artists leaving their first marriages.Around 1924 the couple settled aboard a sailboat anchored in Halesite on Long Island. In 1933, they moved to Dove's hometown, Geneva, New York, where they lived until 1938 when they moved to a cottage in Centerport on Long Island. They lived in the cottage until Dove's death in 1946. Throughout their life the couple suffered from economic hardship and lived in extreme poverty. Torr died in Bayshore, Long Island, New York, in 1967.
Career
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 outlived Dove by 21 years but never resumed painting, and requested that all her paintings and drawings be destroyed. Instead, her sister donated much of her work to the Heckscher Museum, which organized a show of her work in 1972. 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, and in 2000, was accepted into the Historic Artists’ Homes and Studios Program administered by the National Trust for Historic Preservation.
List of Works
| Image | Title of Work | Information |
|---|---|---|
 | Ship's Mast | Medium: Charcoal on wove paper Dimensions: 510 x 484 mm (20 1/16 x 19 1/16 in.) Creation date: 1920-35 |
 | Evening Sounds | Medium: Oil on composition board Dimensions: 36.19 x 25.4 cm (14 1/4 x 10 in.) Creation date: 1925-30 |
| Crimson and Green Leaves | Medium: Oil on plywood Dimensions: 14 1/8 x 12 1/2 in. (35.9 x 31.8 cm) Creation date: 1927 | |
 | Purple and Green Leaves | Medium: Oil on copper mounted on board Dimensions: 20 1/4 x 15 1/4 in. (51.4 x 38.7 cm) Creation date: 1927 |
 | Houses on A Barge | Medium: Oil on canvas Dimensions: 16 x 21 in. (40.6 x 53.3 cm) Creation date: 1929 |
Exhibitions
There are many public collections in the Heckscher Museum, 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.
- 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.
