Photo by Joan Cordell
1904-1996
Helen Weld, a native of Lowell, Massachusetts began painting while at Vassar. Her teacher, Clarence Kerr Chatterton, was a student of Robert Henri. In 1925 she enrolled in the Art School of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts leaving just before graduation in the spring of 1929 in reaction to its rigid academic training.
Miss Weld with classmate Lucy Jarvis then came to Yarmouth, Nova Scotia to paint for the summer. She returned to the Boston Museum School to study under two new teachers from the Slade School.
Miss Weld spent the year of 1932-33 at Cape Forchu, Yarmouth County. After World War II she came in summers until she took up year round residence at Pembroke, Yarmouth County in 1971. While in Lowell she was a director of the Lowell Art Association and with a friend organized many exhibitions. She traveled and painted a number of times in Europe including study at the studio of the Grande Chaumière, Paris.
Helen Weld has exhibited in many group exhibitions including with the Lowell Art Association at the Whistler House, Lowell, Mass.; with the Yarmouth Art Society at Th’ YARC and At the Sign of the Whale Gallery, Yarmouth.
Her work was included in the Exhibition “Nova Scotia Pictures: Art in Nova Scotia 1940-1966” organized by Dalhousie Art Gallery, Halifax, Nova Scotia, 1994-96. (see exhibition catalogue). Helen Weld exhibited with Lucy Jarvis at the local school house, Markland, Nova Scotia in 1947, at the Yarmouth County Museum, Yarmouth, and at the Colchester – East Hants Regional Library, Truro in 1972. At the Sign of the Whale organized a solo exhibition of her work in 1986; a two-person exhibition with Margot Tassi in 1990; a three-person exhibition with Margaret Chipman and Denise Comeau in 1993; and an exhibition with work from the estate of Lucy Jarvis in 1995. In 1995 the Art Galley of Nova Scotia in co-operation with Acadia University Art Gallery mounted the exhibition “The Spirit of Yarmouth Lives: Paintings by Lucy Jarvis and Helen Weld”. (see exhibition catalogue).
Her work is in the collections of the National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, Ontario; the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia, Halifax, Nova Scotia; the University of New Brunswick Art Centre, Fredericton, New Brunswick; Acadia University Art Gallery, Wolfville, Nova Scotia; Dalhousie University Art Gallery, Halifax, Nova Scotia; and the Lowell Historical Society, Lowell, Massachusetts.