Z. VANESSA HELDER: INNOVATIVE FORMALIST REALISM IN THE GRAND COULEE DAM PAINTINGS

This project considers the life and art of Z. Vanessa Helder, an artist working at midcentury who combined various stylistic elements of the period in constructing twenty-three watercolors of the Grand Coulee Dam in Spokane, Washington. Her works are unique in their ability to evoke trends of Realist, Precisionist, and mural art that were popular during the 1930s while also exhibiting a striking dynamism and sense of overall pictorial control. The aim of this project is to understand the Grand Coulee Dam watercolors that Helder produced from 1939-1941 in terms of her biography, the context of other art depicting industrial subjects produced during the 1930s, and Helder's innovative style. Her use of formal qualities of balance and absence in displaying both the natural and mechanical aspects of her Dam-related subjects mark her work as unique. Though much scholarship has been published on art from the Works Progress Administration Federal Art Project, the Treasury Section murals, and paintings of industrial scenes by both realist and Precisionist artists, Helder's watercolors have not been studied regarding their grounding in her biography, the historical context of her choice of this subject, and the innovative ways she drew on formal elements. Helder's ability to give her works a dynamic structural pattern underneath the realist details of the physical buildings creates a visual record that is exceptional for the period. By first discussing her liberated, somewhat bohemian lifestyle and then comparing her works to contemporary industrial images, this thesis will propose that Helder's paintings can be seen as expressing both her specific individual vision and an egalitarian concept of industry and American life at midcentury using an innovative blend of stylistic choices.