Helen Kroeger (1892-1986)
Helen Kroeger was a part of Caroline (“Dolly”) Bell’s merry band of friends and artists who crisscrossed the North Fork seeking ever more beautiful vistas for their plein air painting excursions. One can only begin to imagine the painting, critiquing and picnicking that took place on these artistic adventures.
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Helen Kroeger was born in New York City, where she first trained as a schoolteacher. She then studied at the venerable Art Student’s League, under the guidance of such important painters as George Grosz and Frank Vincent du Monde. Kroeger, who is sometimes classified as a “Peconic Impressionist,” actually painted in a broad range of styles, from traditional landscapes to an almost expressionistic paintings, always with a light and elegant touch paired with a keen and discerning eye. Like many of her peers, she painted landscapes in Pennsylvania and seascapes in Gloucester, Massachusetts. She began visiting and painting on the North Fork in the 1930’s.
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In New York, in the early in the 1940’s, she met Otto Kurth, a successful, Munich-born illustrator and painter of maritime scenes. Kurth was married and never divorced, but moved to Mattituck with Helen Kroeger permanently in the 1960’s. They built a life and a home and a studio, known as “The Anchorage” there. They became an intrinsic part of the artists’ community on the North Fork. Helen became especially close to Caroline Bell, who lived nearby in Mattituck.
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When Kurth’s wife Julia died in 1965, he and Helen finally married. Tragically, he died just a few weeks after they wed.
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Helen Kroeger was listed in the Blue Book of American Painters and showed her work frequently at both the Old Town Arts and Crafts Guild and the Little Gallery in Mattituck She also exhibited her work at other important venues, including the Museums at Stony Brook (today’s Long Island Museum) and the Guild Hall in East Hampton and at other venues across Long Island. She continued to teach and paint in Mattituck until her death in 1986.