Riva Helfond facts for kids

Riva Helfond (March 8, 1910 – May 13, 2002) was an American artist. She was famous for her prints and paintings. Her art often showed the lives of working people. This style is called social realism.

Early Life and Education

Riva Helfond was born in Brooklyn, New York. She was part of a Jewish family. She lived in Russia for some time as a child. When she was eleven, she came back to New York. She lived in New York or New Jersey for most of her life.

From 1928 to 1940, Riva studied art. She went to the School of Industrial Art. She also studied at the Art Students League. Her teachers were famous artists like Yasuo Kuniyoshi. She learned printmaking from Harry Sternberg. Her future husband, William (Bill) Barrett, was also a student there.

Teaching Art to Others

Helfond started teaching art in 1933. She taught printmaking at the Harlem Community Art Center. This center was part of the Works Progress Administration (WPA). The WPA was a government program during the Great Depression. It helped people find jobs, including artists.

Riva helped start the printmaking program at the center. She taught lithography (a type of printmaking). She worked with other artists like Jacob Lawrence. Later, she taught at New York University in 1964. She also taught at Union College in New Jersey starting in 1980. One of her students, Robert Blackburn, became a famous printmaker. He started his own workshop in New York.

Riva Helfond's Artwork

From 1936 to 1941, Riva Helfond worked for the WPA. She made art using many methods. These included lithographs, woodcuts, and silkscreens. She was one of the first artists to use color in American printmaking. She also explored new ways to use screen printing.

Her early art showed working people and city scenes. These were often in black and white. Later, her art became more colorful and abstract. She painted landscapes inspired by her travels. She turned some of her watercolors into oil paintings.

Riva Helfond cared deeply about social issues. She often showed the struggles of workers. Her art highlighted problems between businesses and the government. For example, her print Custom Made (1940) shows a tired woman working. Snow Clearing (1933) shows men shoveling a street.

Art historian Helen Langa wrote about Helfond's art. She said Riva worked in factories in the 1930s. Her print Curtain Factory (1936-39) shows this experience. It shows women working in a crowded space. The way the women are drawn shows how tiring their work was.

Riva also made prints about coal miners. These included Miner and Wife (1937). Another was Out of the Pit (1935), showing miners with dirty faces. After she married Bill Barrett, she met his relatives who were miners. She brought other artists to meet the miners.

Riva faced some challenges while working in mining towns. Sometimes, she found it hard to connect with people. This was because of cultural differences. Despite these challenges, her prints of miners are very important. They show the lives of poor workers during the New Deal era.

Exhibitions and Collections

Riva Helfond's art was shown in many places. In 1940, her work was in a show at the MoMA in New York. This show aimed to make art affordable for everyone. Her art was also in shows at the Dallas Museum of Fine Arts.

Her work is kept in many famous museums. These include the Metropolitan Museum of Art. It is also in the Museum of Modern Art (New York). The Library of Congress also has her art. In 2009, her work was part of an exhibition in New Jersey.

Later Life and Legacy

Riva Helfond was friends with many famous artists. These included Willem de Kooning and Franz Kline.

Later in life, she lived in Plainfield, New Jersey. She owned the Barrett Art Gallery there. She started it with her husband in the 1960s. In the 1950s, she designed a beautiful stained-glass window. It was for a church in Plainfield.

In 1972, Riva and other artists formed a group. They called themselves "Five Directions in Graphics." They exhibited their printmaking art together. They shared ideas and learned from each other.