More than a dozen works by the late Helen LaFrance – the Black artist whose “memory paintings” are widely celebrated beyond her native Western Kentucky – are now on display at the Paducah School of Art & Design.
The works were brought together by the Paducah Historic Preservation Group, a local nonprofit that aims to preserve the region’s Black history. The paintings, purchased with more than $100,000 in donations, include depictions of Black rural life and local landmarks.
Rhonda McCorry-Smith, the president of PHPG, spoke to the dozens of attendees at the opening reception Thursday.
“[It’s] more than just Black history. It is Kentucky history because her depictions in the paintings reflect life in Kentucky as she saw it, as she grew up,” McCorry-Smith said. “She was … a Renaissance woman because she didn’t go by the rules and [all] of these paintings that you see are a reflection of Helen’s life.”
Wanda Stubblefield, a cousin of LaFrance, cared for the artist in her later years. She said seeing that many of LaFrance’s works in one spot “brought back a lot of memories.”
“I could visualize some of the things that she was painting,” Stubblefield said. “I could take it back to home life, where we lived on the same, as we used to say, the same road we used to walk up to her house when we were kids.”
Carol Tyler Young, also a cousin of LaFrance, has vivid memories of spending time with the artist in her later years. Her favorite painting of the bunch at PSAD is the one that fetched the highest price at auction, a painting of the community of Shelton Church chapel in Viola that LaFrance painted herself into.
“We remember those rallies on the lawn out there,” said Young. “All the rural churches would come together. We’d have food on the lawn, and people would eat, and then they have a service in the afternoon with singing and preaching.”
The scenes depicted in LaFrance’s paintings – and the stories they tell – is what interests Ruth Baggett, a visual artist with deep Paducah roots.
“Helen LaFrance is considered the Grandma Moses of African-American art. She is the creme de la creme and there is such an honesty about her work that comes through,” Baggett said. “Really, in a lot of these paintings, it’s the people that make them so special, and the telling [of] the story of who these people were, where they lived, where they worshiped, what they did.”
Cheryl Sullivan is on the city’s Creative & Cultural Council. She said keeping works by regional artists like LaFrance, who called Graves County home, is a vital part of preserving the area’s connection to its past.
“It’s preserving our African American history, putting our African-American artists to the forefront, so everyone can enjoy,” Sullivan said. “You can look at things in the paintings and say, ‘Oh, I’ve been to a place like that,’ or ‘I’ve been to one of those barbecue restaurants’ … it’s just our life, natural life, that she depicted.”
PHPG has launched several historical projects since it formed in 2022. Its members led conversations about public art on the city’s Southside. Additionally, McCorry-Smith said Thursday she hopes to locate where slaves who were buried in McCracken County were laid to rest and erect a monument in their memory.
This week, the group is again leading an interactive Black history tour as part of the region’s Eighth of August celebrations, which mark the date that some slaves in Kentucky and Tennessee were emancipated.
PHPG also hopes to eventually establish a permanent Black history museum in Western Kentucky to house other historical artifacts, as well as the LaFrance paintings. Six additional paintings donated by community members would join the 14 acquired by the group at auction if a permanent space was acquired.
PHPG leadership said the paintings will be on display in PSAD’s library area for at least a year.
“This collection is for western Kentucky and the rest of the world,” McCorry-Smith said.
This story is republished with permission from WKMS. Read the original.
