Helen Cantrell

I am a Connecticut-based painter and printmaker and have shown my work widely throughout New England for the past two decades. I live in Old Lyme, CT, and have shown previously with CCNS several times. I currently am running a twice-weekly open print studio for experienced printmakers at the Lyme Academy of Fine Arts in Old Lyme.
I was born in 1947 in Chicago. After two years at Washington University School of Fine Arts in St. Louis, I headed to New York City, where I worked as a typesetter for many years, while attending the Art Students League on weekends and at night. After retiring, I moved to Connecticut and began making art full time, making my first etchings at the Center for Contemporary Printmaking in Norwalk in 1998, learning from Vijay Kumar. I later went back to art school, graduating from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston (SMFA at Tufts) with a Diploma Studio Arts in 2004, with a focus on printmaking, which included large-scale woodcutting and silkscreen.
My most recent one-person show of paintings and prints was in 2019, before Covid, at the White Gallery in the Litchfield Hills. This May I will be having a one-person painting show at the Cooley Gallery in Old Lyme. Recent awards include Best in Show at the 2020 New Haven Paint & Clay Club members’ show, Best in Show at the Slater Museum’s 2019 Connecticut Artists Exhibition, and a special juror’s award from Willie Cole at the 2015 Boston Printmakers biannual.
Currently I am an elected artist member of the Boston Printmakers, the Silvermine Guild of Artists, and the New Haven Paint & Clay Club. I am also a member of the Center for Contemporary Printmaking in Norwalk, CT.