Helen Sawyer, Sarasota, oil on canvas, 20 by 24, signed lower left Helen Sawyer.
Helen Sawyer was one of Florida’s most gifted artists. Her father, artist Wells Sawyer, encouraged her to paint, and at the age of 16, one of her landscapes was accepted for exhibition at the National Academy of Design. In 1918 she and her father had a joint exhibit at the Badcock Galleries in New York City. Sawyer met Jerry Farnsworth on Cape Cod when both were students in Charles Hawthorne’s painting classes. They were married in 1925. Farnsworth referred to his wife as a “born artist, “while he was only a “made artist.” Throughout her career Sawyer exhibited under, and signed her work, with her maiden name.
Helen Sawyer, Little Dredge at Evening, oil on canvas 12 by 16 inches, signed lower left Helen Sawyer.
She and Jerry Farnsworth opened the Narragansett Art School in North Truro on Cape Cod in 1933, and in 1941, a Florida branch in Sarasota. From 1941 on, the couple spent summers on Cape Cod and winters in Sarasota.
The November 1949 issue of American Artist said of Sawyer’s work, “Helen Sawyer paints Florida somewhat in the same mood as she does Cape Cod, seeking out the unspoiled elemental phases, the ever-changing skies and sea. You will find no tourists or waving palms on sandy beaches, but rather the back country of primitive forests with Negro’s fishing on the edge of the shore and swamp, a blue-green lagoon known only to fishermen and sea birds. These are her subjects. She paints the Florida that is seldom seen or noticed by the average visitor. She has discovered that much of it is a primitive Eden still.” Lee Corbino said, “Sawyer was one of the first women artists to paint feminine subjects, long before the endorsement of the Women’s Movement. In Sarasota she rediscovered the Florida landscape as a subject for artists seeking a spiritual response to nature.”
For more on Helen Sawyer, see Marcia Corbino’s Helen Sawyer, Memories of a Morning Star and Marion Spjut Gilliland’s, Dearest Daught and Popsy Wells, Two Artists Named Sawyer.
Helen Sawyer, Sarasota Alley, oil on canvas board, 16 by 20 inches. signed lower right Helen Sawyer.
Born: 1898, Washington, D.C. Died: 1999, Sarasota. Education: With her father Wells Sawyer; Art Students League, New York City; National Academy School, New York; Charles Hawthorne School, Cape Cod. Membership: National Academy of Design; Clearwater Art Museum, Florida Artist Group, president, 1954, 1955; Sarasota Art Association; Sarasota Petticoat Painters; Florida Federation of Art; Art League of Manatee County; National Association of Women Artists; National Arts Club; Washington Society of Artists; Valley Art Association; Washington Art Club; Yonkers Art Association, New York; Provincetown Art Association. Exhibits: National Academy of Design, 1914; Century of Progress, Chicago, 1933-34; Hudson Valley Art Institute, 1935, 1936, 1st prize, portrait and landscape; Fine Prints of the Year 1937; New York World’s Fair, 1939; Sarasota Art Association, March 1944, 1st prize, landscape, Tropical Picnic, Staffordshire Huntsman; Florida Federation of Art Annual Circuit, 1944, painting exhibited at Jacksonville Woman’s Club, February-March 1945, oil, After the Hurricane; Sarasota Art Association, South Palm Avenue, January 1945, Halloween Still Life; Sarasota Art Association, Members Annual Exhibit, March 1945, Bouquet in Periwinkle Vase, Morning of the World (Semi-nude of a girl on the threshold of life.); Florida Gulf Coast Group, 4th Annual Exhibition, nationwide circuit, July 1945-May 1946, After the Hurricane; Florida Gulf Coast Group, Clearwater Art Museum, 5th Annual, nationwide circuit, July 1946-May 1947, oil, Bouquet with Hibiscus; Southeastern Annual, Atlanta, 1946, 1947, honorable mention, figure; Florida Gulf Coast Group, Clearwater Art Museum, 6th Annual, nationwide circuit, July 1947-May 1948, Florida Landscape; University of Illinois, Competitive Exhibition of Contemporary American Painting, March 1948, Carnival; Third Southeastern Annual, High Museum, Atlanta, October 1948, special mention for an oil, Flowers in a Blue Vase; Sarasota Art Association, Cain Building, December 1948, Florida; Sarasota Art Association, at Ringling Museum, 1st exhibit, 1949, Entre Act, The Sea Belle, Toward the Gulf; Florida Gulf Coast Group, sponsorship, Clearwater Art Museum, 7th Annual nationwide circuit, July 1948 to May 1949, oil, Rehearsal; Sarasota Art Association, winter, 1949, Richness of Moonlight, The Bayou, Circo Espanola; Sarasota Art Association, Circus Show (Only Circus Art), March 1949, Buzzie Potts and Daisy, The Spirit; Florida Gulf Coast Group, 8th Annual Exhibition, Clearwater Art Museum, on nationwide circuit, July 1949 to May 1950, oil, The Clown; Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1950, American Painting Today; Elected to National Academy of Design, 1950; Ringling Museum of Art, All Circus Exhibit, March 1950, 1st prize, Bareback Rider, 1951; Sarasota Art Association, 25th Anniversary Year, Members Show, January 1951, Blonde; Florida Artist Group, 2nd Annual national circuit, shown under auspices of the Art Department, University of Florida, May 1951 to April 1952, Clown Still Life; Sarasota Herald Tribune, landscape prize, 1951; Florida Artist Group, 3rd Annual Members Exhibit, Ft. Harrison Hotel, Clearwater, shown under auspices of the Clearwater Art Group, March 1952, black & white drawings and prints, The Convalescent, Ballet, Drawing of a Girl, Castaway at Noon, Nude; Florida Artist Group, 3rd Annual, national circuit, shown under auspices of the Clearwater Art Group, May 1952 to April 1953, special mention, Arrangement with Taffeta Cravat; Sarasota Art Review Week, March 1953; National Academy of Design, 129th Annual, New York City; Ringling Museum of Art, Sarasota, 1955, Fifty Florida Painters, oil, Earth and Sea; Florida Artist Group, 6th Annual Circuit, Palm Beach Art League, April 1955, Marine Still Life; Art League of Manatee County, All Members Exhibit, October 1955, 209 Ninth St. W. Bradenton, Arrangement with Poem, Benjy; Florida Federation of Art, 30th Annual Exhibit, West Palm Beach, 1956, award, Rip Tide; Art League of Manatee County, 21st Annual Members Exhibition, February 1957, honorable mention; Miami Beach Art Center, 2100 Collins Avenue, July 1958, Circus Art by Sarasota Artists, Winter Quarters and The Girl Clown; Florida Federation of Art, 1957; Bradenton Art Center, Member’s Show, November 1958, October Atlantic; Florida Artist Group, 9th Annual Circuited Exhibition, 1958-1959, an oil, Children of the Storm; Sarasota Art Association, Flowers and Landscape Exhibition, January 1959, Daybreak; Art League of Manatee County, Member’s Annual Juried Exhibit, March 1959, Tiger Lily, The Cove; Governor’s All Florida Art Show, Ringling Museum of Art, January 9-February 2, 1960, lithograph, Amanda, oil, White Pitcher; Sarasota Art Association, Members’ Annual Juried Exhibition, February 1960, The Green Spoon; Sarasota Art Association Annual, April 1960, Ringling Museum, Of Time and the Sea; Florida Artist Group, 12th Annual Circuited Exhibition, 1961-62, an oil, Far Away and Long Ago; Chicago Art Institute, 47th Annual American Exhibit, 1st honorable mention, landscape; Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts; Corcoran Gallery; Carnegie Institute; two one-man shows, Milch Gallery, New York; Indianapolis Museums; Artist in Residence, University of Illinois; work represented in the Library of Congress; Toledo Museum of Art, Ohio; Whitney Museum of Art; John Herron Art Institute; Miami University, Oxford, Ohio; International Business Machines; High Museum of Art, Atlanta, Georgia. Included in book, Twenty Painters and How They Work by Ernest W. Watson. Painting, The Bareback Rider, appeared on the cover of This Week Magazine section of the New York Herald-Tribune in 1948. Marcia Corbino wrote a book about Sawyer, Memories of a Morning Star. Directory: Listed in the Sarasota City Directory as Mrs. Helen S. Farnsworth, an artist, 1956 to 1960, with studio at 5035 Oxford Drive until 1958, an later at 5045 Oxford Drive.
