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Helen Hyde
1868–1919
BirthplaceLima, New York, United States of America
Death placePasadena, California, United States of America
BiographyWorking in both woodcut and etching, Helen Hyde was a successful American color printmaker who spent much of her career abroad. A native of Lima, New York, Hyde moved to Oakland, California, as a girl to be raised by her father's affluent family following his death. Having already studied drawing, she enrolled in the San Francisco School of Design, studying with Danish-born still life painter Emil Carlsen (1853–1932). In 1888–89, she studied with academic figural painter Kenyon Cox (1856–1919) at the Arts Students League in New York, and in 1890 she went to Europe for further training. Hyde worked under German painter Franz Skarbina (1849–1910) at the Hochschule für Bildende Kunst in Berlin, and then spent three years in Paris. There, she visited exhibitions of Japanese woodblock prints and also saw the color prints of American expatriate artist Mary Cassatt. French artist Félix Régamey (1844–1907), one of her teachers, encouraged her passion for Japanese art.
On her return to San Francisco, Hyde purchased a printing press and experimented in etching technique, which she had learned from her friend Josephine Hyde (dates unknown; no relation). She began illustrating children's books and selling her prints, many of them scenes of children in San Francisco's Chinatown, through Macbeth Gallery in New York City. In 1899, accompanied by Josephine, she first traveled to Japan, where she would remain for the next fifteen years, with several long visits back to America and trips to China and India. In Japan, Hyde learned color woodcut printmaking technique from Austrian artist Emil Orlik (1870–1932) and studied traditional ink painting with master artist Kano Tobonomu (dates unknown). In 1903 she hosted the innovative color printmaker and design pioneer Arthur Wesley Dow, whose Japanese-inspired prints she admired.
In her prints Hyde embraced Japanese subjects and style. She made numerous images of mothers with their children as well as scenes of ordinary life and landscapes. In 1911, while recovering from unsuccessful cancer surgery in the United States, she visited Mexico, which became another source of motifs. Ill health and concern over the erosion of traditional ways in Japan prompted Hyde to return permanently to the United States in 1914. Settling in Chicago, she abandoned the more laborious woodcut process and resumed color etching. In the course of her career, Hyde had exhibited widely throughout the United States and in Paris; in 1915, one of her prints received a medal at the Panama-Pacific Exposition in San Francisco. She expanded her subject matter with winter visits to the Carolinas, and during World War I she designed posters and prints to rally support and patriotic feeling on the home front. Artistically successful and much celebrated, Hyde succumbed to cancer at the age of fifty-one.
On her return to San Francisco, Hyde purchased a printing press and experimented in etching technique, which she had learned from her friend Josephine Hyde (dates unknown; no relation). She began illustrating children's books and selling her prints, many of them scenes of children in San Francisco's Chinatown, through Macbeth Gallery in New York City. In 1899, accompanied by Josephine, she first traveled to Japan, where she would remain for the next fifteen years, with several long visits back to America and trips to China and India. In Japan, Hyde learned color woodcut printmaking technique from Austrian artist Emil Orlik (1870–1932) and studied traditional ink painting with master artist Kano Tobonomu (dates unknown). In 1903 she hosted the innovative color printmaker and design pioneer Arthur Wesley Dow, whose Japanese-inspired prints she admired.
In her prints Hyde embraced Japanese subjects and style. She made numerous images of mothers with their children as well as scenes of ordinary life and landscapes. In 1911, while recovering from unsuccessful cancer surgery in the United States, she visited Mexico, which became another source of motifs. Ill health and concern over the erosion of traditional ways in Japan prompted Hyde to return permanently to the United States in 1914. Settling in Chicago, she abandoned the more laborious woodcut process and resumed color etching. In the course of her career, Hyde had exhibited widely throughout the United States and in Paris; in 1915, one of her prints received a medal at the Panama-Pacific Exposition in San Francisco. She expanded her subject matter with winter visits to the Carolinas, and during World War I she designed posters and prints to rally support and patriotic feeling on the home front. Artistically successful and much celebrated, Hyde succumbed to cancer at the age of fifty-one.