Helena Dunlap was best known for her involvement in the California Impressionist and Post-Impressionist movements, and her paintings are a reflection of both disciplines. Considered a radical at the time in the early 1900's, she helped pave the way for future modernist painters. Although her early style was noticeably based on the Impressionistic values of a bright palette and deliberate brush strokes, her later work reflects a shift to Modernism.

Dunlap was a native Californian, born in Los Angeles in 1876. She attended both the Art Institute of Chicago and the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Art, studying under William Merritt Chase in New York and later with Andre L'hote in Paris. Dunlap exhibited some of her paintings when she retu...