Irish & International Art 25th April 2016 : Click Lot Title for More info & Pictures.

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signed and dated ‘Hd. Helmick 1869’ lower left
oil on canvas
92 x 72.5cm (36 x 28in)
Provenance: Private Collection
Exhibited: Paris Salon 1868, No. 1173, from his address at Rue de Furstemberg, 6., Paris, France.
€2,500-3,500 (£1,953-2,734)
Brought up on a farm in Ohio, Howard Eaton Helmick began his art training in the Ohio Mechanics Institute in Cincinnati, and
subsequently at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts (from 1862-64). Perhaps he emigrated to avoid becoming a soldier, but two
years later he was successfully established in Paris, studying under the guidance of the master Alexandre Cabanel at L’Ecole des
Beaux-Arts. His teacher was accomplished and award winning, and it’s easy to see the stylistic influence on this talented pupil, who
started showing his work in Paris between 1868 and 1872. The first titles that he exhibited at the Paris Salons, for a French audience,
were titled in French, ‘L’Accouchee’, ‘La Confidence’, ‘Un coin de feu, XVIe siecle ‘ and ‘Les Savants’. While he was in Paris,
he became acquainted with the renowned American impressionist painter Mary Cassat, who was from Pennsylvania. Both artists
showed work at the Salon in Paris in 1869, and Helmick’s title was ‘Le Mauvais Oeil’ (The Evil Eye), which perfectly describes
the narrative for this substantial, exhibition size painting. By 1872-73 Helmick had left France for London and Ireland. He began
exhibiting at London’s Royal Academy, in 1873 ‘Un dejeuner a La Forchette’, and ‘The Irish Piper’, the latter the first of a series of
subjects based on his numerous visits to Ireland. By 1879 he was an elected member of the Society of British Artists, and by 1881
the Society of Painter Etchers, he was ‘one of the first to take to colour etching, his illustrations having appeared in some of the lead-
ing publications’. He quickly established himself by exhibiting at the major British galleries. Becoming friends with other American
exiles such as James McNeill Whistler, he worked from a capacious studio in London’s Holland Park, as well as showing titles from
addresses in Ireland. He swiftly made a name for himself as an accomplished subject and genre painter, and his many surviving
paintings and etchings demonstrate his consistent and undoubted talent.
Helmick’s use of narrative to frame his stage-like scenes, invited the viewer to debate and interpret various activities. Here the artist
uses a historic composition as an opportunity to show off his skill at figure painting, with challenging and difficult poses, such as
the dynamic foreshortening of the young man in the centre foreground and the way he and his young family glance backwards over
their shoulders at the dark figure who seems to be the cause of insult and retaliation. We are tempted to speculate why the family are
out in the snowy churchyard at night, and the darkly dressed man with his black beret seems to be grappling with the lock at his own
door, and has presumably warned them away with his unfriendly gaze or some unfavourable comment. The contrast between the
small girl looking alarmed and the father gathering up a snowball adds tension to the sense of vulnerability provided by the mother’s
arms cradling her baby. Snow lights the background and gives contrast to the otherwise dark scene, and the unlit house on the right,
with the bare boughs of a creeper clinging to the walls, all suggest the cold of winter. The architecture is another deliberately difficult
choice as a backdrop, with the angles and complexity of the gothic parts of the church, decked with drifts of snow, allowing the artist
to show off his skills at handling perspective.
The backdrop to this history scene may well be a detail of the back of the church of Saint Gervais Saint Protais, Paris. Helmick and
his wife were known to have been there in association with Mary Cassat ‘in St. Gervais. Mrs Helmick to take the paths, Helmick
to paint’ in the same year, 1869, that this work is dated. They also travelled 20 kilometres north of central Paris to Ecouen in the
1860’s. Helmick stayed there in a cottage with his wife and baby, finding inspiration for his painting amongst the rural beauty and
colourful traditional peasant costume of the annual fete. The pattern of setting up studios in beautiful places, which he subsequently
established when working in Galway, and in Kinsale in county Cork, provided inspiration for new work. Although an increasing
number of Helmick’s paintings of Irish scenes have come to light in recent years, his earlier French work is only just beginning to
emerge and be identified.
L. M. Fink, American Art at the c19th Paris Salons (Cambridge University Press, 1990), p.355.
Claudia Kinmonth, Irish Rural Interiors in Art (Yale University Press, 2006).
Claudia Kinmonth ‘Howard Eaton Helmick Revisited: Matrimony & Material Culture through Irish Art’ in V. Krielkamp ed’, Rural
Ireland the Inside Story (Exhibition Catalogue, McMillan Art Gallery Boston College, 2012), pp. 89-101.
Claudia Kinmonth MA(RCA) PhD is a Moore Institute Visiting Research Fellow, at N.U.I. Galway.
Claudia Kinmonth, March 2016