Page 17 - AARF 2019-2020

Four years after her death the Show, National Watercolor Show, and
Orlando Sentinel, June 25, 1987, the Florida statewide experimental
reviewing an exhibit of her work show, sponsored by the Sarasota
noted: “Stockwell’s obsession with Art Association. Protas exhibited
capturing Florida’s pure, swampy at the Ringling Museum, the Gulf
landscape during this century was Coast Gallery, Sarasota, and the
a legend in her native DeLand, National Academy of Design. A
which followed her to Eustis. For Canadian, Helen and her husband
her, there was never enough time Jay were killed on the way back to
to paint it all, the lakes before town Helen’s home in Hamilton, Ontario
houses replaced shacks, the moss- when their car blew a tire, crossed
covered trees before they replaced the median on the New York State
with high-rises. The all-consuming Thruway and was hit by an oncoming
desire to preserve her beloved truck. Helen, a charter member of
Florida with smears of color on Sarasota’s Petticoat Painters, was
canvases yielded thousands of forty-five.
paintings and numerous awards for
the veteran artist.”

Paul Laessle, Miami. Self Portrait, oil on
canvas, 20 by 24 inches.
Helen Protas, Sarasota. Self-portrait, Paul Laessle graduated from the
Voodoo. Oil on board, 22 x 26 inches. Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts
in 1935, wining the prestigious
Helen Protas, the wife of artist Cresson Scholarship for travel in
Jay Protas, was known for her, ”gay Europe. He came from an artistic
and sometimes humorous modern family with his mother, Mary
abstractions.” Her work was noted Middleton Laessle, a professional
in Art News, Art Digest, Who’s Who sculptor and portrait painter, and his
in the South and Southwest and father, Albert Laessle, internationally
Who’s Who of American Women. By known as a sculptor and a member
1951 she had accumulated awards of the National Academy of Design.
in the National Oil and Watercolor Continued on Page 21
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