Some may remember reading about Helen Hastings in the April 3, 2017, issue of the Suburban News shortly after Sue Savard found a trunk filled with Helen Hastings’ paintings, illustrations, personal notes, and supplies in the attic of the current Brockport Museum & Library of Local History at 49 State Street. Sue asked Sarah Hart, now the museum’s Art Historian and Town of Sweden Historian, to help research, sort, preserve, and restore the items found in the trunk. Sue and Sarah have dedicated hundreds of hours to this collection.
They are finding out that there is more to Helen Hastings than just familial ties to the famous historic Seymour family. Helen is the granddaughter of James Seymour who was instrumental in bringing the location of the Erie Canal through Brockport. Sue and Sarah are slowly piecing together Helen’s life.
Helen, a Brockport resident in the early 1900s, an artist with interests in writing and architecture, started the museum at 49 State Street and is now gaining notoriety in South Hampton, New York.
Sue Savard was recently interviewed for an article on Helen Hastings in The Southampton Press, Eastern Edition. The article describes how the trunk was found, and the connection Helen Hastings had with the Long Island area. Helen attended the Long Island area’s Shinnecock Hills Summer School of Art founded by William Merritt Chase, an American painter and teacher. She also studied at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Art studying under Howard Pyle and Cecilia Beaux, both American artists.
The Brockport Museum & Library of Local History holds the only known collection of Helen’s works. Helen’s personal notes, sketches, and paintings offer a unique look into the artist’s life and creative process. Sarah Hart immediately noticed the nearly obsolete education, Academic portraiture, that Helen wrote about and used.
Sue Savard published “Helen Hastings’s Art in a Trunk,” an invaluable resource for artists of all ages, and is currently writing a biography of Helen Hastings life. Both Sue and Sarah continue their research into this amazing, historic Brockport woman. Watch for more articles updating their progress on Helen Hastings. The collection is currently on display at the Brockport Museum & Library of Local History located at 49 State Street, Brockport.
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