John Heliker Figurative Drawings and Watercolors
American, 1909-2000
Determined to become an artist, Heliker dropped out of high school to copy paintings at the Metropolitan Museum. From 1927 until 1929 he studied with Kimon Nicolaides, Thomas Hart Benton, and Boardman Robinson at the Art Students League. After several years away Heliker returned to New York in the 1930s and in 1947 joined the faculty at Columbia University where he taught until his retirement. Heliker won a Prix de Rome in 1948 and spent the next five summers in Italy. At this time larger strokes and freer designs began replacing the structural, Cézannesque abstractions that occupied him in the 1940s and early 1950s. A painter of landscapes, portraits, and still lifes, Heliker chooses traditional subject matter for his semi-abstract, painterly compositions.
John Heliker was one of the premier landscape and figurative paintings of the second half of the twentieth century. He was born in Yonkers, New York when it was still farm country and, after high school, studied painting at the Art Students from 1927-1929. Heliker had three one-person shows at the Maynard Walker Gallery in New York, the first in 1936, and in the late 1930s was making drawings for the New Masses and joined the easel division of the WPA Federal Art Project. When Maynard Walker Gallery closed Heliker began his association with Kraushaar Galleries that continues with his estate to this day.
Heliker was a Professor of Art at Columbia University for twenty-seven years. He also taught at the Colorado Springs Fine arts Center, Art Students League, the New York Studio School (he was a founding faculty member), and in the MFA Painting Program at Parsons School of Design. His work was exhibited nationally in the major survey exhibitions of the Carnegie Institute, the Brooklyn Museum, the Cleveland Museum, the Corcoran Gallery, the Museum of Modern Art’s Abstract Painting in America, and many others. The Whitney Museum of American Art honored Heliker with a mid-career retrospective in 1968, and he has been included in numerous Whitney Museum annuals and biennials. Heliker's work toured Europe in the 1950's through the USIA, and he was a featured artist at the World's Fair in Brussels in 1958 and in Osaka in 1969. He was represented at the Bicentennial Exhibition AMERICA: 1976 at the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, DC, which traveled through the country.
Heliker was elected a member of the National Institute of Arts and Letters in 1969. From the American Academy of Arts and Letters he won a Gold Medal for Merit and a Purchase award and grant in 1967. The artist was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Fine Arts from Colby College, Maine and from Bard College, New York. He worked and lived in New York and on the coast of Maine, where he painted since the 1950's.to
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Artist: John Heliker
Self Portrait (original signed unique charcoal drawing) Kraushaar Gallery label
By John Heliker
Located in New York, NY
John Heliker
Self Portrait, 1991
Charcoal Pencil on Paper (with original Kraushaar Galleries label verso)
Signed on the front
bears the original KRAUSHAAR GALLERIES label on the verso on the frame
Vintage metal frame included
Self portrait done in charcoal pencil by distinguished American artist John Heliker. Hand signed on the front
This work is framed - bears the label of the renowned KRAUSHAAR GALLERIES on the verso.
Image size: 13 inches by 10 inches;
Framed: 18 1/2 inches by 14 1/2 inches
About John Heliker from The New York Times Obituary, 2000 (Roberta Smith)
John Heliker, a painter and teacher who was a fixture of the New York art world for nearly seven decades, died on Tuesday at the Sonojee Estate, a health center in Bar Harbor, Me. He was 91 and had lived in New York during most of his career, spending summers on Cranberry Island...
Category
Late 20th Century Modern John Heliker Figurative Drawings and Watercolors
Materials
Charcoal, Carbon Pencil
UNTITLED (KEEP SMILING)
By John Heliker
Located in Portland, ME
Heliker, John. (American, 1909-2000). UNTITLED ("KEEP SMILING). Ink on paper, not dated, likely 1930s. The image is of two men in a workshop, one possibly the customer, the other wor...
Category
1930s John Heliker Figurative Drawings and Watercolors
Materials
Ink
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John Heliker figurative drawings and watercolors for sale on 1stDibs.
Find a wide variety of authentic John Heliker figurative drawings and watercolors available for sale on 1stDibs. You can also browse by medium to find art by John Heliker in carbon pencil, charcoal, ink and more. Much of the original work by this artist or collective was created during the 20th century and is mostly associated with the modern style. Not every interior allows for large John Heliker figurative drawings and watercolors, so small editions measuring 10 inches across are available. Customers who are interested in this artist might also find the work of Alfred Bendiner, Irene Pattinson, and Raphael Soyer. John Heliker figurative drawings and watercolors prices can differ depending upon medium, time period and other attributes. On 1stDibs, the price for these items starts at $1,100 and tops out at $2,800, while the average work can sell for $1,950.