Person Record

Metadata

Name

Mears, Helen Farnsworth

Notes

From Mary Hiles biography, http://www.askart.com: Nellie (AKA Helen Farnsworth) Mears was born in December 1872 in Oshkosh, WI, the youngest of three daughters; she changed her name in recognition of her aunt, Helen Farnsworth, who left her (and sister Mary) money to pursue artistic careers; Helen studied at the Art Institute in Chicago; at age 21 she received her first commistion by the state of Wisconsin to create a figure (she entitled "Genius of Wisconsin") to be exhibited at the Columbian Expositon of 1893 in Chicago for which she received a $500 prize and the attention of Augustus Saint-Gaudens; Mears became Saint-Gaudens' first female assistant, she studied and worked with him in New York and Paris; after returning to Oshkosh, Helen and her sister, Mary, moved again to New York where the two worked side-by-side as artist and author.

Cornish Colony Museum biography, www.askart.com: Born in Oshkosh, Wisconsin. Her first exhibit was at the age of ten when she exhibited a head of Apollo in the Winnebago County Fair in Oshkosh which she had baked in her mother's oven. She attended the Art Institute of Chicago and later the Arts Student League in New York where she studied under Augustus Saint-Gaudens. She is credited as being his first woman assistant and executed a bust of Saint-Gaudens. Mears belonged to the National Society of Sculptors and was one of the Cornish Colony women who exhibited in the Women's Hall at the Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893 where she was awarded a medal. She also exhibited and was awarded a medal in the St. Louis Exposition in 1904 and in the San Francisco Exposition in 1914. Helen Mears created the statue of suffragist Frances Willard for the U. S. Capitol in 1900. Many of her works are in the permanent collection of the Paine Art Museum in Oshkosh, WI and in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Unfortunately, she was not able to handle commissions and money well and died destitute of a combination of malnutrition and influeza.