Mount of the Holy Cross by Helen Chain, Oil on Board
Artist Biography
Helen was born in Indianapolis, Indiana on July 31, 1849. Following a family move to California, upon the death of her mother, she moved back to Indiana to live with a maternal aunt. Helen, nicknamed “Trot” for her love of travel, graduated from Illinois Female College (now MacMurray College) in 1869 with a major in English and formal training in art. Two years later she married James Albert Chain, and they settled in Denver where he established a book and stationery store. Helen began earnest work in her artistic style while also teaching art.
Helen was best known as a painter of mountain landscapes, traveling to the specific sites to paint. She was known as an avid mountain climber, taking in Pikes Peak, Grey, and Long’s peaks. She was reported to have been the first woman to climb and sketch Colorado’s Mount of the Holy Cross, in 1877. She sketched in Yosemite, the Grand Canyon, Yellowstone, Taos, and in Mexico. Typical works in the west were “Twin Lakes near Leadville”, “Royal Gorge on the Arkansas River”, and “Santa Clara Plaza”. She also illustrated John Dyer’s book “Snow-Shoe Itinerant”, published in 1891.
Helen was happy with her work, opening her studio to visitors and giving public exhibitions of her work to encourage others to take up the art. She exhibited in the Denver Art League’s first exhibition in 1892 and at the National Mining Exposition in 1893. She made a hit at the Minneapolis Industrial Exposition, displaying her “Mount of the Holy Cross”.
Helen and husband James were lost in the China Sea during a typhoon on October 10, 1892, while on a “two-year-round the world tour”. Her works are in collections at the Denver Public Library, State Historical Society of Colorado, University of Colorado, Boulder; Rockwell-Corning Museum, Corning, New York, and the Colorado Springs Pioneers Museum in Colorado Springs, Colorado.
