Biography
Born and raised in Brooklyn, New York, she earned her bachelor's degree in Theatre Arts, Design at the State University of New York at New Paltz. She moved to California in 1978 and lives in Santa Monica, California with her husband, Dr. Stuart Garber and two Springer Spaniels. Her studio is located at Venice Beach, California.
Helen worked in many different art disciplines including theatre scene and costume design, painting, computer animation and video documentary. In 1991, she produced and directed the video documentary, Shirley Kaufer, Artist. It was edited by the award winning film maker, Phil Zwickler. Shirley Kaufer was shown in Los Angeles at the juried Women's Film Festival at Barnsdall Park and on local PBS stations.
Helen focused on still photography in 1991 after she documented Le Cirque du Soleil in Santa Monica, Costa Mesa and New York.
Since Helen lived in the entertainment capital of the world, she specialized in public relations photography. Her portraits were reproduced in many periodicals such as the New York Times, the LA Times, Playbill, Hollywood Reporter, New York Magazine and the LA Weekly. Her corporate clients included Hachette Filapecci Publications, The Getty Center, CBS, Penguin, Doubleday and the Mayor's Office, City of Los Angeles. In 1997, Helen won the Photo of the Year Award from the Publicity Club of Los Angeles.
The grand prize money from the national 20th Century Photo Contest was used to build out a studio across from Gold's Gym, Venice. Helen spent the next five years documenting the visually extreme members of the gym.
One of Helen's last commercial assignments was to appear on the other side of the camera for the Travel Channel in the 30 minute photo travelogue, Freeze Frame San Diego. She accompanied TV personality, Bill Boggs on adventures throughout San Diego County, while teaching him photo technique tips. The photos taken during the adventures were reproduced in American Photo, Travel Holiday and Popular Photography magazines.
Helen was hired by Random House to illustrate the 1998 best selling book, Parents at Last, the New Pathways to Parenthood. She and her husband Stuart (then on sabbatical), traveled around the country documenting 35 families who were created in non-traditional ways.
Helen switched to fine art photography in 2000 and has had her work exhibited in venues such as AIPAD, NY, Photo L.A., Photo New York, UBS Paine Webber Gallery, NY, The Norton Museum, West Palm Beach, FL, Hermes Gallery, Beverly Hills, Kathleen Ewing Gallery, Washington, DC, Paul Kopeikin Gallery and G. Ray Hawkins Gallery, Los Angeles. She is represented in Los Angeles by DNJ Gallery, in New York by Marla Hamburg Kennedy, and in Boston by Tepper Takayama Fine Arts.
The Santa Monica Arts Commission, The Venice Community Trust, Women In Photography, International, Focus On AIDS and the International Photography Awards are a number of the organizations that Helen either has advised or sat on the board. In 2006, Helen curated FOH, a show of photography for Ocean Front Gallery at Venice Beach, California.
Since 2008, she has been directing a group photography installation, An Intimate View. Seeing that her many photographer friends were reeling from the change in direction of the business of photography as well experiencing the economic slump, she organized a group project where the photographers would document their neighborhoods over the course of the year and then present the stories in the latest digital technology. The first group, GroupSC 2008, An Intimate View of Los Angeles premiered at Gallery Skart along with the opening night of the first Month of Photography, Los Angeles. The MINARC designed installation using 25 photo screens telling the stories simultaneously was critically acclaimed and invited to re-install at the international Los Angeles Art Show, in January, 2010. This would be the first time that photographers would work together as a group rather than compete against each other as they normally do. The strength of the whole as well as the talent and the passion of the group members was the essence of this successful collaboration.
The second year group expanded to 45 artists and a territory from Santa Ynez to San Diego and East to Palm Springs. GroupSC 2009, An Intimate View of Southern California will premiere April 3, 2010 in conjunction with opening night of Month of Photography, 2010.
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