Local artist continues to broaden talent
SOUTH CONNELLSVILLE – A local and renowned artist captured the personalities of her great grandchildren in a series of individual portraits that she gave to their families as holiday gifts when she traveled to Ohio to spend Christmas. Helen Alt said she decided to broaden her talent this year to include “life-like” portraits of children after taking a course through the Greensburg Art Club in which she was formerly a member.
While Alt, 88, welcomes the challenge, she said it involves more concentration on the child’s facial features so the artist can bring forth the personality of the child. “That’s the most important and what makes the picture,” said Alt.
Alt was doing the portraits of her five great-grandchildren with pastel chalk.
Alt, who was born and raised in Philadelphia, stumbled upon her hidden talent as a freshman in high school recognized by her art teacher.
While Alt received a scholarship to the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts upon graduation she took an array of night classes instead at the University of Philadelphia for the next several years.
But, Alt was forced to put those classes on hold when World War II erupted and instead found herself as volunteer at a building in downtown Philadelphia that housed the Army Air Forces Air Raid Warning System.
It was there that she met John Warmuth of Connellsville who was serving in the U.S. Army. The couple married two years later.
Alt said Warmuth was deployed to Germany where he was injured shortly before the war ended when the couple decided to move back to his hometown where they raised four children.
It wasn’t until Warmuth’s death and the growth of her children that Alt was able to pursue her talent full-time in the early 1960s and became married to John Alt.
Eleven years later, Alt joined the hospital auxiliary at Highlands Hospital in Connellsville where she headed an art gallery housed in the snack bar.
Alt has since completed art classes at Penn State Fayette The Eberly Campus and attended workshops in West Middletown and Uniontown, Chatham College and Carnegie Mellon at Touchstone Center for the Arts.
With seven decades of drawings behind her now, Alt said she never lost her passion to sketch and has just about done it all, from scenery to still life and most recently completing five covers for a history series written by Connellsville author Ceane O’Hanlon-Lincoln.
Alt still has her first oil painting, which is hung in the hallway of her Chestnut Street residence.
Over the years, Alt has continued to showcase her talent throughout Pennsylvania focusing primarily on watercolor although she has received numerous commissions for work in oil, acrylic, pastel and charcoal.
Several of Alt’s paintings have since been purchased by Nemacolin Woodlands Resort & Spa owner Joe Hardy, while another is featured at Geibel Catholic Middle-High School with exhibitions of her work at Westmoreland County Community College, National and Scottdale banks, Westmoreland, Latrobe, Uniontown and Highlands hospitals and St. Vincent College, Kennedy Gallery.
In addition, Alt is a member of the Pennsylvania Watercolor Society with her work exhibited at various art shows held at the Westmoreland Museum of Art, the Capitol Rotunda, Penn State Fayette The Eberly Campus, Alex Fletcher Memorial Art Center in Greensburg, Shippensburg State University, California University of Pennsylvania, RSVP North in Pittsburgh, Gallery-Space in Monroeville, Philip Dressler Center of the Arts in Somerset and most recently at Gallery MD in Connellsville.
Last year, Alt received the Distinguished Citizen Award from the Greater Connellsville Chamber of Commerce in addition to a proclamation from Mayor Judy Reed.