MURRAY, Ky. — When an E-F4 tornado ravaged downtown Mayfield in 2021, a painting by esteemed artist Helen LaFrance was pummeled at the local Ice House Gallery, which was levelled by the storm.
The same tornado splintered solid beams and once-sturdy walls of St. James African Methodist Episcopal Church, where a LaFrance mural of the Garden of Gethsemane barely survived the disaster.
Since then, the damaged works by LaFrance have been repaired thanks to the efforts of a dedicated community and the strategic vision and tireless fundraising of the Paducah Historic Preservation Group, whose mission is to identify and recognize examples of African American history and culture in Kentucky’s Purchase area.
A collection of LaFrance’s art is receiving long-overdue attention at an exhibition on view until Feb. 27 at Murray State University’s Wrather Museum.
LaFrance was born in Graves County Nov. 2, 1919. She died in 2020 in a Mayfield nursing home at 101. Her obituary in the New York Times said her vibrant “memory paintings” brought comparisons to Grandma Moses and other regional artists. The Times described her religious paintings as “both terrifying and ecstatic.”
She was barely out of the toddler stage when she discovered the power of the pencil, with help from her mother. According to Jayne Moore Waldrop’s biography of LaFrance, “She Remembered It All,” Helen’s mother “slipped a paintbrush between Helen’s fingers” and showed her how to use it.
Thus, at an early age, Helen learned “to make paints from plants like dandelions, from bright, shiny berries, and even from the bluing they used on laundry day.”
The LaFrance exhibition at the Wrather Museum lures visitors back to an age of gravel roads and open fields, old-time rural settings including a cabbage patch, a country kitchen and a river baptism. In one nighttime scene, the excitement of a county fair plays out against a sprawling black sky. Nearby, a gigantic Ferris wheel offers a starlit adventure, while a fancy carousel features a carnival of fantastic animals suited to riders of every age.
For almost 100 years, LaFrance hoarded details of everyday life in the Jim Crow era and reproduced them painstakingly in her paintings. Commonplace tasks like churning butter and peeling potatoes are captured in her colorful work. “Out for Dinner” shows a Black-owned diner where mouthwatering dishes like pork barbeque were served to Black patrons.
“Children Sleeping #2,” one of this writer’s favorites, may reflect one of LaFrance’s memories of growing up, when she and her sisters and cousins bunked together, giggling, whispering secrets and sharing hopes and dreams until they succumbed to sleep.
The museum exhibit marks the first public viewing of LaFrance’s iconic 1998 painting of the Graves County Courthouse, which was toppled in the 2021 tornado. The historic painting was purchased by the Waldrop family of Western Kentucky in 2025, through efforts of the Paducah Historical Preservation Group.
The art of Helen LaFrance is just one dimension of the nonprofit Paducah Historical Preservation Group’s commitment to preserving African American history in the Jackson Purchase Area: Ballard, Calloway, Carlisle, Fulton, Graves, Hickman, Marshall and McCracken counties.
The group’s purpose is to identify historically significant locations and have them recognized as historical preservation sites that are documented on state and national registries.
The Wrather Museum is open from noon to 4 p.m. Monday through Friday. There is no admission fee.
This column is republished from The Murray Sentinel.
Between 1989 and 2023, Constance Alexander’s newspaper column Main Street was recognized for excellence five times by the Kentucky Press Association. She is an award-winning columnist, poet and playwright, and she received the Governor’s Award in the Arts for Media in 2014. A Murray resident, she now writes Left on Main, an occasional column. She is a Hoptown Chronicle board member.
