Helen Saunders

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Abstract Multicoloured Design, 1915, Tate Gallery.

Helen Saunders (4 April 1885–1 January 1963), was an English painter.

Born in Croydon, Saunders studied at the Slade School of Art from 1906 to 1907, and later at the Central School of Art & Design. She exhibited in the Twentieth Century Art exhibition at the Whitechapel Gallery in 1914. In 1915 she became associated with the vorticists, signing their manifesto in the first edition of BLAST magazine, and contributing to their inaugural exhibition.

She exhibited with the London Group in 1916, but from 1920 she increasingly turned away from the avant-garde and adopted a more realist style, latterly exhibiting with the Holborn Art Society.

Her 1996 biography by Brigid Peppin includes a foreword by Richard Cork who states that:

"Since Saunders' early work earned her a respected place in experimental circles, the gathering obscurity of her later years seems cruel. She endured the neglect with uncomplaining stoicism, for her innate warmth prevented her from succumbing to bitterness."

Peppin discovered a great deal of previously unknown information about Saunders' life and work. However, she remains a greatly neglected artist, and her fame, such as it is, tends to be limited to the United Kingdom.

She died in Holborn, London on January 1, 1965.