Helena Wood Smith (March 9, 1865 – August 1914) was an American artist.
Early life and education Helena Wood Smith was born on March 9, 1865, in Bangor, Maine. She was the sister of novelist, Ruel Perley Smith. Helena attended the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn.
Career By 1912, she had moved to Carmel-by-the-Sea, California, and was the instructor of "drawing and painting from nature" at the local School of Arts & Crafts. An online facsimile of the entire text of Vol. 1 is posted on the Traditional Fine Arts Organization website (). She exhibited at the San Francisco Art Association (1910–1913), Carmel Arts & Crafts Club (1913), and the Hotel Del Monte Art Gallery (1911–13).
Part of her early exhibition history includes the: Boston Art Club (1893–1900), Annuals of the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts (1896–1897), Water Color Club of Washington, D.C. (1902), and Annual of the Art Club of Philadelphia (1900).American Art Annual 4, 1903-04, p. II-68. At the latter, her entry was entitled "Merestead, Gardens of the Pilgrims".The Catalog of the Annual Exhibition of the Penn. Academy of Fine Arts (1896), v. 66-67; Catalog of the Annual Exhibition of Oil Paintings and Sculpture, Art Club of Philadelphia (1900), v. 9-17 Smith was also discussed in Corelli C. W. Simpson's Leaflet of Artists (J.W. Bacon, 1893).
Personal life In August 1914, she was strangled and buried on the beach by her lover, Japanese art-photographer George Kodani, who was convicted of second degree murder and sentenced to life in prison.Edan Hughes, Artists in California, 786-1940 (San Francisco: Crocker Art Museum, 2002)
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