Debora Hughes, UUCT Art Director, curates or art display. The art on our walls today is by Helen Shapiro (1914-2006).

Shapiro was a member of Meridian, Mississippi’s Jewish community. She came of age in the depression and had no formal training as an artist until the end of WWII, when she enrolled for one year at the prestigious Parsons in New York.

Unfortunately, after her first year of studies there, her father died and she felt compelled to return to Meridian to join her newly widowed mother. She married Al Shapiro, a native New Yorker, in 1948, and had a daughter, Cathy, and a son, David.

Over the years, Shapiro worked in a variety of media, but focused on fabric collage in her later years. She colorfully peopled this work from her own Southern Experience but also drew from images of diverse ethnicity and popular culture. With great sensitivity, Shapiro often translated the works of Gauguin, Renoir, and other artists she admired into the medium she loves, cloth collage.

The display is coordinated by her personal friend and Tuscaloosa artist, Deborah Hughes, who views this exhibit as a beginning exhibition effort that brings her vibrant work to the attention and appreciation of a new and much wider audience.

For more information, or if you are interested in the purchase of one of her works, contact deborahhughes50@gmail.com or call 205-310-5939.