Memory Painting: Helen LaFrance and the American Landscape

Memories are a complex and highly personal facet of human experience. Self-taught African American artist Helen LaFrance (1919–2020) used recollections of her hometown in rural Kentucky to create vibrant and intimate paintings that give us a glimpse of her personal experiences and surroundings. Her exuberant depictions of daily activities invite comparisons to the work of Grandma Moses, Horace Pippin, and other regional painters who drew from their memories to tell stories about past times and places. LaFrance began painting around the age of 40, when she had enough money to buy paints and supplies; in 1986, she devoted herself to the profession full time.

This installation highlights two recently acquired paintings by Helen LaFrance, Marching Band (1994–1999) and Church Picnic (1998–2000), that recall the artist’s summer holidays. In Church Picnic, her local church community is gathered for a Memorial Day celebration. In Marching Band, red, white, and blue flags, bunting, and balloons enliven an Independence Day parade led by an interracial band. These paintings convey LaFrance’s innovative interpretations of color and composition. In order to communicate more animated, expressive feelings of remembered places, LaFrance eschewed traditional perspective, instead utilizing flat patterns, blocks of strong color, and abstracted space.

This installation places LaFrance’s works in dialogue with American art of the 1930s and 1940s, including James Baare Turnbull’s Church Supper (1934) and Cloud Trails (1944) by John Rogers Cox, as well as contemporary works, such as Jacob Lawrence’s Supermarket—Produce (1994) and Katharine Kuharic’s Super Bowl Sunday (2003). All the works in this installation convey individual memories and their emotional significance. As LaFrance described her painting practice in 2010, “It’s just a way of reliving it all again.”

Memory Painting: Helen LaFrance and the American Landscape is curated by Hannah Klemm, associate curator of modern and contemporary art, Melissa Wolfe, curator of American art, Amy Torbert, Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Assistant Curator of American Art, and Molly Moog, research assistant, modern and contemporary art.

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