Helen Rousseau (American 1895-1992)
The art of Helen Rousseau reflects her interpretation of two very different movements in California art in the 20th century – American Modernism and Bay Area Figurative Painting.
Stylistically, the first important influence on Rousseau was the teaching of Otis Oldfield at the California School of Fine Arts. He introduced her to the tenants of modernism and for the next 25 years, she pursued classic American Scene Painting rendering regional, rural and urban subjects in geometrically constructed compositions.
In 1951, Rousseau returned to the California School of Fine Arts to study with the pioneer of the new Figurative Painting, David Park. Park’s aesthetic of using the figurative subject as the vehicle for abstract expressionist paint handling broke the limitations that Rousseau had felt evident in her own paintings. Released from the confines of modernism, she loosened her brushwork and boldly arranged her compositions, silhouetting her universal figures against brilliant sunlit landscapes.
The period of 1951 to 1968 was the most successful for her in her long career. Her unique figurative work resulted in regional recognition and in addition to solo shows throughout California, she was included in numerous exhibitions ranging from the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Art to California Watercolor Society presentations at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the California Palace of the Legion of Honor and the Santa Barbara Museum of Art. Her large scale paintings depicted southern and northern California including views of Long Beach, Santa Barbara, Whittier, Sausalito and Mill Valley as well as views of Panama from 1963. She retired to Santa Barbara in 1968 where she lived until her death in 1992.