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Cement Silos
Date: 1939-1941
Image Dimensions: 14 3/4 x 22 1/5 inches (image)
Medium: Watercolor
Inscription: "Vanessa Helder," lower right corner, front
Curator Notes: Vanessa Helder's twenty-two paintings documenting the construction of Grand Coulee Dam, completed between 1939 and 1941, capture both the grand scale and the subtle nuance of one of the largest public works projects in the history of America. In skillfully orchestrated compositions Helder juxtaposes the wild eastern Washington landscape with human-made structures offering views of dam construction, people at work, and worker housing and community buildings. Two rich paintings reveal the lost beauty of the Kettle Falls, a traditional fishing site and gathering place for Plateau Indian people until it was inundated by the Lake Roosevelt reservoir created by the Grand Coulee Dam. These paintings possess an unmistakable vitality that studio partner and friend of Vanessa Helder, Robert O. Engard believes came from studying the strong contrasts of light, shadow, and color present in the semi-arid landscape of eastern Washington.
Subjects: Grant County-Grand Coulee Dam-Construction and Great Northern Railway
Provenance: Purchased from the artist in 1954.
Collection Number: 2585.1
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