Helen Gapen Oehler California Coast oil on board P3343
Helen Gapen Oehler (1893-1979)
From a private collection comes this lovely impressionist oil By Helen. One of her more vibrant Coastals of California.
12 x 16
frame 17 x 21
Best known for her landscapes, seascapes, views of nature as well as paintings of scenes from global travel, Oehler is considered a progressive impressionist. She painted in the world, Midwest and eastern coast, some California.
Helen Gapen Oehler was born in 1893 in Ottawa Illinois. She was bright and at an early began to paint. Helen Oehler attended and graduated from the University of Illinois in art and teaching and was in the Chi Omega sorority. She then went on to study at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago where she graduated with honors. She added further studies in New York, Provincetown, Cape Cod and with Jules Lefevre in Paris. She first met George Elmer Browne, artist and teacher and National Academician, at the School of the Chicago Art Institute and went on to work in his studios in New York and Provincetown, Massachusetts. She went and studied with George Elmer Browne in his studios in New York and Provincetown, Mass.
Helen Gapen met Arnold Oehler in the late 19020's and they were married in Chicago in 1930. They moved to Cleveland, Ohio, where she had her first studio. Later they moved back to Chicago and she was an art teacher from 1942-1951 in the Chicago area. She and Arnold moved to Connecticut and the New Jersey area in the 1950's. She had a Connecticut studio and began to sell her art to patrons in Cape Cod, New York, Provincetown and New Jersey. During her years in New Jersey she became active in art society's and eventually became the Director of the Art Council of New Jersey.
In the late 1950's, Helen Gapen Oehler moved to Mt. Tamalpais in Mill Valley, California, and became an active part of the Marin County art community and Audobon artists for approximately 15 years prior to retiring to her Carmel Studio 195 at Hacienda Carmel near the Monterey peninsula. She died surrounded by family and friends in 1979.
Commentary from the Curator of the Artist Associates from her solo exhibition program of 1972:
