Helen Katharine Forbes
| Helen K. Forbes | |
|---|---|
| Born |
February 3, 1891 San Francisco, California |
| Died | May 27, 1945 (aged 54) San Francisco, California |
| Nationality | American |
| Alma mater | California School of Fine Arts |
| Style | WPA-era painting and murals |
Helen Katharine Forbes (born February 3, 1891 – death May 27, 1945) was a Californian artist specializing in etching, murals and painting and an arts educator. She is best known for western landscapes and portrait paintings and her murals with the Treasury Section of Fine Arts and with the Work Progress Administration (WPA). Forbes was skilled in painting in oil, watercolor, and egg tempera. She painted landscapes of Mexico, Mono Lake and the Sierras in the 1920s, desert scenes of Death Valley in the 1930s, as well as portraits and still life paintings.
Helen Katharine Forbes was born February 3, 1891 in San Francisco, California to Stanley Forbes and Kate Skells. At age 12, she moved to Palo Alto, California with her family and attended Castilleja School for Girls, in which she graduated in 1908. Her grandfather was Andrew Bell Forbes, a California pioneer that arrived to the state with the Argonauts in the 1849 California Gold Rush.
She attended Mark Hopkins Art Institute, where she studied with Frank Joseph Van Sloun. She studied with artist, Armin Hansen in the Carmel area. Later traveling to Europe to study with André Lhote, Ernst Leyden and Hermann Groeber and to attend Academy of Fine Arts, Munich (also known as the Akademic der Bildenden Künste, München) from 1921 until 1925.
Forbes lived and worked throughout Europe and the United States, she traveled often but home was always California. From 1925 until 1926 she travelled to the mining town of Guanajuato City, Mexico for artistic inspiration. From 1930 until 1932 Forbes traveled for short periods of time to Death Valley, in order to finding inspiration for her scenes of the West. She also traveled to Virginia City, Nevada and painted landscapes and scenery. Her painting, Piute Indian was purchased by Mills College. In 1931 she taught in the Art Department of the University of California, Berkeley.
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