Kentucky Women: Helen La France

August 26, 2022

Gathering together works drawn from the Speed’s collection and private loans, Kentucky Women: Helen La France explores the art and life of this remarkable artist. La France documented her western Kentucky rural and small-town experiences, rooted in Mayfield and around Graves County. Her sense-memory paintings feature moments recalled from everyday life: church picnics, shared meals, parades, and quilting bees. Working across a variety of mediums, including collage, sculpture, painting, and dollmaking, La France’s vibrant and life-affirming artwork documents a century’s worth of Kentucky living.

The Kentucky Women exhibition series offers a closer look at the work of important Kentucky women artists.

The programming for the exhibition will include a screening of the recent documentary Helen La France: Memories which charts the life of this talented artist.

Sponsored by:

Lopa and Rishabh Mehrotra
Anne Brewer Ogden

Exhibition season sponsored by:
Cary Brown and Steven E. Epstein
Paul and Deborah Chellgren
Arthur J. and Mary Celeste Lerman Charitable Foundation
Debra and Ronald Murphy
DavFam Art Fund

Helen La France
(American, 1919 – 2020)
Quilting, 1998
Oil on canvas
12 × 24 in.
Purchased through the generous donations of Jeff and Susan Callen, Richard H.C. and Elizabeth Clay, Hardscuffle, Inc., Spencer Harper III, Anne Brewer Ogden, Dr. Kenneth and Shelly Zegart, West Louisville Women’s Collaborative, Lisa Brendel Ewen, Caroline Guthrie, Elmer Lucille Allen, Chenoweth and Tyler Allen, and Ramona Dallum Lindsey and Faith S. Lindsey, with additional support from the Alice Speed Stoll Endowed Art Acquisition Fund 2021.4