Ben Uri Research Unit

Born: 1920 King William’s Town (now Qonce), South Africa

Died: 1980 London, England

Year of Migration to the UK: 1948

Other name/s: Helen Bloch, Helen Bertha Bloch

Biography

Artist Helen Yamey (née Bloch) was born into a family of German-Jewish heritage, in King William’s Town (now Qonce), South Africa, on 15 October 1920. When he was a teenager, her family relocated to Stellenbosch from Barkly East. Yamey’s father had emigrated from Germany to South Africa around 1903, while her maternal grandparents were originally from Prussia. Despite her Jewish background, Yamey was non-observant. In 1948, she met her future husband, Basil Yamey, whose family was of Lithuanian-Jewish descent. At the time, he was preparing to emigrate to England from South Africa, having secured a teaching position at the London School of Economics (LSE). Yamey followed him to London later that year and the couple married in 1948. Before her move abroad, Yamey studied commercial art and painting in Cape Town, where she was employed to paint cinema posters - a common practice in the pre-digital era - and decorating furniture. During the Second World War, she contributed to the war effort, painting posters for the Red Cross. Once in England, she continued her art practice, shifting from painting to sculpture. Between 1948 and 1949, the couple briefly lived in Montreal, Canada, before returning to London.

In London, Yamey pursued a creative practice from the early 1950s to the late 1970s, working in a liminal space where she operated largely as an outsider artist who did not seek fame, yet nevertheless received some formal recognition. Yamey began sculpting in the early 1950s, around the birth of her first child, Adam, with her first sculpture appropriately titled Mother and Child. She also took evening painting classes in Westminster, where she was taught by German refugee artist, Walter Nessler who possibly also introduced her to the vibrant artistic circle at St Martin’s School of Art. Although she was neither a formal student nor a teacher, Yamey was able to work in the sculpture studios there under the progressive policies of Frank Martin, which allowed non-enrolled artists to utilise the facilities and attend classes. This informal arrangement exposed her to a dynamic community, where she worked alongside some of the most significant emerging sculptors of the time, such as Elisabeth Frink, Anthony Caro, William Turnbull, Eduardo Paolozzi, and Phillip King. Yamey acquired technical skills in welding and metalwork - techniques that would otherwise be inaccessible to her at the time. However, by the mid-1960s such informal educational settings had disappeared and Yamey rented a garage in Golders Green, in north London, which she converted into a private studio.

Yamey’s sculptures reflect a modernist engagement with abstraction, geometry, and industrial materials, such as metal (she also worked with more traditional materials, such as wood, alabaster and Hornton stone), emphasising structural interplay and dynamic spatial relationships. The pieces adopt a Constructivist aesthetic of stripped-down forms and a rhythmic interaction between positive and negative spaces. The juxtaposition of curved and angular elements reveals an exploration of balance and movement, reminiscent of the Bauhaus approach to material and design. Her focus on simplicity and industrial aesthetics aligns with De Stijl’s geometric purity from the early 20th century and with the predominance of these concepts in British abstract sculpture in the 1950s and 1960s. Some of Yamey's other works, however, are more figurative and organic, aligning with an alternative, more expressionist tradition.

Yamey had several significant exhibitions during her lifetime. In 1961 she first showed with the London Group; although she was not an elected member, the Group accepted submissions from non-members and Yamey exhibited Abstract Forms. The show also included works by other important non-members, such as painter Frank Bowling, alongside members, including Eileen Agar and, émigré, Frank Auerbach. The same year Yamey also featured in the 25 Young Sculptors exhibition organised by the ICA, where she showed a sycamore wood piece, Standing Forms, selected by Roland Penrose. Another young female émigré artist, the Singapore-born Kim Lim, also participated. In 1962, Yamey was the only female artist included in Agis, Annesley, Vaughan, Yamey at the Grabowski Gallery (founded by Polish émigré, Mateusz Grabowski, in 1959). In 1965, she participated in a group exhibition at the Grosvenor Gallery and, in the same year, in Women and the Arts, organised by the Northampton Arts Association. She exhibited again with the London Group in 1964, this time with a piece titled Iron Sculpture 1963.

Yamey introduced her husband (who became a distinguished professor at the LSE) to the world of art, igniting a passion that ultimately led to the publication of his book Art and Accounting, an in-depth exploration of the portrayal of accounting in vanitas paintings. Helen Yamey died in London, England in 1980 and is survived by her two children and her art historian granddaughter, Mala Yamey. Her works are not currently represented in any UK public collections.

Related books

Adam Yamey, Remembering Helen - My Mother the Artists (Adam Yamey/Amazon KDP, 2024)
Richard Seddon, 'Key Words of a Rich Period', Birmingham Daily Post, 9 February 1965, p. 5

Related organisations

London Group (exhibitor)
St Martins School of Art (informal student )

Selected exhibitions

Women and the Arts (group show of the Northampton Arts Association), Museum and Art Gallery, Northampton (1965)
Fifty Years of Sculpture - Some Aspects 1914 - 1964 (group show), Grosvenor Gallery, London (1965)
London Group (group show), RBA Gallery, London (1964)
Agis, Annesley, Vaughan, Yamey (group show), Grabowski Gallery, London (1962)
26 Young Sculptors (group show) Institute of Contemporary Arts, London (1961)
London Group (group show), RBA Gallery, London (1961)

Ben Uri archive

Consult items in the Ben Uri archive related to [Helen Yamey ]