A Helen Bickham 40 painting exhibit is on view as of Wednesday June 14 at 6 p.m. at the Main Post Office known as Palacio Postal in downtown Mexico City located at Tacuba 1, Historic Center. The works of this well-known artist in Mexico will be shown until July 14.
Birkham, a well-known personality at artist-haven La Roma in Mexico City, has been a resident of Mexico since 1962 when she developed her now skillful touch with the oil brush.
She was supposed to spend only a six week hiatus in Mexico as a student at the University of California at Berkeley, but fell in love with the country and stuck around.
Following the path of most “gringos” who decide to reside in Mexico, she began teaching English in private schools and finally settled for a permanent professorship at the National Multi-Technical Institute from where she retired.
She says she began painting professionally in 1975 when she felt her oil technique “had matured” and has never stopped since, putting on canvass literally thousands of paintings that sell very well, so much that she’s able to make a living off her art. She’s been a member of the prestigious “Salón de la Plástica Mexicana” in recognition of her talent and is one of the few foreign-born artists to belong to Mexican classical painting.
Born in Manchuria, China, of a U.S. father and a Ukrainian mother, she grew up in the United States but made Mexico her home.
In her new exhibit she’s bringing new and old works. She’s been constantly sponsored by Public Education Secretariat (SEP) and Cultural Affairs office’s Gustavo Lomelín and personally introduced yet another exposition recently during International Women’s Day.
The current art show at the Main Post Office in Mexico City adds to a large international career of more than 70 individual expositions.