Oral history interview with Helen Marjorie Windust Halper
name: label: Interviewee
content: Halper, Helen Marjorie Windust, 1908-1996
label: Interviewer
content: Brown, Robert F.
label: Names
content: H.C. Gallery (Provincetown, Mass.)
label: Names
content: H.C.E. Gallery (Provincetown, Mass.)
label: Names
content: Benton, Thomas Hart, 1889-1975
label: Names
content: Bohm, Max, 1868-1923
label: Names
content: Halper, Nathan
label: Names
content: Hawthorne, Charles Webster, 1872-1930
label: Names
content: Hofmann, Hans, 1880-1966
label: Names
content: Malicoat, Philip, 1908-1981
label: Names
content: Vytlacil, Vaclav, 1892-1984
label: Names
content: Waugh, Frederick Judd, 1861-1940
topic: label: Occupation
content: Painters -- Massachusetts -- Provincetown
label: Topic
content: Women painters
label: Topic
content: Women artists
acqinfo: label: Provenance
content: This interview is part of the Archives of American Art Oral History Program, started in 1958 to document the history of the visual arts in the United States, primarily through interviews with artists, historians, dealers, critics and administrators.
creator: label: Interviewee
content: Halper, Helen Marjorie Windust, 1908-1996
label: Interviewer
content: Brown, Robert F.
bioghist: label: Biographical / Historical
content: Helen Marjorie Windust Halper (1908- 1996) is a painter of Provincetown, Mass. Helen Halper is married to the art dealer Nathan Halper.
physdesc: label: Extent
content: 1 Sound cassette (Sound recording: (ca. 90 min.), analog.)
label: Extent
content: 28 Pages (Transcript)
phystech: label: System Details
content: Originally recorded on 1 sound cassette.
unitdate: label: Date
content: 1994 Sept. 27
dataSource: label: Archival Repository
content: Archives of American Art
identifier: label: Identifier
content: AAA.halper94
objectType: label: Type
content: Collection descriptions
label: Type
content: Archival materials
label: Type
content: Sound cassettes
label: Type
content: Pages
label: Type
content: Sound recordings
label: Type
content: Interviews
altformavail: label: Existence and Location of Copies
content: Transcript is available on the Archives of American Art's website.
genre_format: label: Genre/Form
content: Sound recordings
label: Genre/Form
content: Interviews
scopecontent: label: Scope and Contents
content: An interview with Helen Marjorie Windust Halper conducted 1994 Sept. 27, by Robert F. Brown, for the Archives of American Art.
label: Scope and Contents
content: Halper talks about her mother and father; childhood summers spent on the northwestern French coast where she got to know Max Bohm and his family; being in France during World War I; and time spent living in England. She discusses going to New York, in 1920, with her brother, and attending the Veltin School for Girls and the Dalton School; going to Provincetown, in 1925, with her mother; and Charles Hawthorne and his teaching methods.
label: Scope and Contents
content: She tells about studying color and abstraction with Vaclav Vytlacil at the Art Students League; drawing classes with Thomas Hart Benton; and extreme poverty of Edwin Dickinson and other Provincetown artists. She recounts meeting Nathan Halper in the 1930s and their marriage following World War II, his becoming an art dealer; and the success of his H.C. and H.C.E. Gallery during the 1950s and 1960s. Halper recalls several Provincetown artists, among them Frederick Waugh, Philip Malicoat, and Hans Hofmann.