Helen Bruton

Helen Bell Bruton (February 7, 1898 – November 16, 1985) was an American printmaker, mosaic muralist and painter. Biography She was the daughter of Daniel Bruton (1839–1928) and Helen Bell Bruton (1866–1956). Daniel and Helen Bell married in 1893. As a successful tobacco merchant, Daniel commissioned Denis Straub & Son to construct the family home at 1240 St. Charles Street in Alameda. This house was sold by the family in 1944. She had two sisters: Margaret Bruton (1894–1983) and Anne Esther Bruton Gilman (1896–1992). Helen Bruton began her formal studies at the University of California, Berkeley, but her education was interrupted by World War I. During the war, she and her sisters contributed to the war effort at the Letterman Hospital in San Francisco. In 1920–21, for two years, she continued her artistic education in New York at the Art Students' League, learning under sculptors Alexander Calder, who was teaching there between 1918 and 1922, and Leo Lentelli. Later, she was also studying in New York under Boardman Robinson in his drawing class. In her 1975 interview, however, she did not recall any strong artistic influences in her career. Her and her sisters' source of income was partially based on their San Francisco property rental. Asked about her style she replied "I've always been more interested in people, I never was a very abstract thinker", she considered herself, to some extent, a late Ashcan School artist. Early Monterey period (1922–1929) There were two periods when Helen Bruton resided in Monterey, California. The family built and furnished a house in Monterey and stayed in it "on and off" as it was their summer place and "Monterey was small and simple at that time". She recalls: