Mizzou Art Education professor, Linda Helmick, opens her new art exhibit with a reception at Serendipity Salon & Gallery this Friday, August 4 with an artist talk at 6 p.m.

The exhibit, "A Legacy of Love," is the result of her research analysis of “The pedagogic legacy of Friedl Dicker Brandeis”. This research was funded by a research council grant awarded last year through which Helmick traveled to Prague and the former Nazi internment camp of Terezin to study the life and work of Friedl Dicker Brandeis who taught art to children while they were all imprisoned at the camp. The paintings in the exhibit are the result of Helmicks visual analysis of this study. 

Artist Statement:

Walking through this experience and creating these paintings was an act of love.  In my visual exploration of Friedl Dicker Brandeis who taught art to children while interred together in the Nazi camp of Terezin outside of Prague during World War II, I found love. Brandeis had a love for art and a love for teaching, and she had a love for children that enabled her to defy the confines of the camp.  When I walked where she walked, stood where she stood and taught, and viewed the artwork the children made under those circumstances, it was obvious to me that love was in the room with them. Love was at the heart of their creations. Friedl, through her experience as an artist and art teacher, saw firsthand that meaningful creative artmaking could see them through. Could lift these young people, if only for moments at a time, out of the horrific circumstances they found themselves in. These paintings are the result of my creative exploration of the extraordinary love she gave to this work. If teaching art with love and passion could do that then, it certainly can do that now.