South Florida Artist Bruce Helander Inducted Into Florida Artist Hall of Fame

West Palm Beach-based artist and curator Bruce Helander, was recently inducted into the Florida Artists Hall of Fame. The award was presented by Secretary of State Ken Detzner and Florida’s First Lady Ann Scott during a ceremony in the state capitol of Tallahassee. The other 2014 inductee was celebrated recording artist, Tom Petty, who was a long time resident of Gainesville. Established in 1986, the Florida Artists Hall of Fame is the highest and most prestigious cultural honor bestowed by the State of Florida.

A bronze plaque was installed permanently in the State House, honoring Helander and the national stature and professional achievements that the artist has accomplished during his thirty-year residency in West Palm Beach. Other prominent former inductees are artists Robert Rauschenberg, James Rosenquist, and Duane Hanson; performers Jimmy Buffett, Ray Charles, Bo Diddley, and Gloria Estefan; and writers Ernest Hemingway and Tennessee Williams, among others. Helander is only the third individual from West Palm Beach to win the award; the others were Ralph Norton and Laura Woodward. Helander is the only former resident of the town of Palm Beach to win this prize.

Helander’s has maintained an international reputation as a collage and assemblage artist, and whose work is represented in more than fifty museum permanent collections, including the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, The Metropolitan Museum, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and the Smithsonian Institution, as well as others.

He has a master’s degree in painting from the prestigious Rhode Island School of Design, where he later became the Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs of the college. He is a fellow of the National Endowment for the Arts and recently won the South Florida Cultural Consortium fellowship for professional achievement in the visual arts.

Helander arrived in Palm Beach in 1982 from New York City, where he published Art Express magazine. He quickly established a cutting edge gallery on Worth Avenue that thrived for thirteen years. During that time he opened a second gallery on West Broadway in New York City. He was also a commissioner for ARCOM in Palm Beach and the vice-president of the Worth Avenue Association. He is active in the south Florida art scene and is on the board of directors at the Armory Art Center. He is a former White House Fellow of the National Endowment for the Arts and has been awarded several grants from the New York Foundation for the Arts. He is also is a regular contributor to The Huffington Post and has written numerous books, including Learning to See, and most recently wrote the essay ‘Quantum Leapus’ for painter Hunt Slonem’s book Bunnies, published by Glitterati.