White Dish on Abstract Design

Though more often remembered as the wife of the prominent Stieglitz circle American modernist Arthur Dove, Helen Torr–nicknamed ‘Reds’ for her auburn hair—painted alongside her husband in a distinct and original Modernist idiom. A long overlooked female artist now finally garnering the recognition she deserves, Torr only exhibited her work twice during her lifetime. Despite consistent support from Dove and the couple’s one shared exhibition, Torr never enjoyed the same success or support from Stieglitz and the art community that revolved around him—a decision of which others took notice. In 1972 Georgia O’Keeffe wrote of Torr's work, “The things were small and colorful in a very reserved fashion, but I thought that they were very good. I think she is a person who would have flowered considerably if she had been given the attention.” (as quoted in Out of the Shadows: Helen Torr, A Retrospective, exhibition catalogue, Huntington, New York, 2003, p. 12)

Filled with self-doubt, upon her death in 1967 Torr instructed her sister, Mary Torr Rehm, to destroy all of her remaining artistic output. Defying her sister’s wishes, Rehm instead showed the work to Eva Gatling, then-director of the Heckscher Museum in Huntington, New York. Recognizing their importance, Gatling mounted a show at the Heckscher and then Graham Galleries in 1972—in which the present work may have been included.