Helene von Beckerath is the descendant of a wealthy family of factory owners in Krefeld. She first received private lessons from the Düsseldorf-based painter Theodor Rocholl. She went to Paris presumably in 1898, where she studied painting as well as sculpture at the Académie Colarossi. Until the First World War, her works were shown in numerous international exhibitions and awarded prizes. In 1914 she had to give up her Parisian studio and leave most of her work behind. The following years, she lived in Krefeld, where she chiefly worked as a sculptor. Probably since her time in Paris, the artist had been friends with Ottilie W. Roederstein, who may have prompted her to move to Frankfurt am Main in 1921. From 1927 to 1932 she rented a spacious sculptor’s studio at the Städelsches Kunstinstitut where she taught female students. The central subject matter of her overall oeuvre was the portrait, which she occasionally realized in her painting in a genre-like manner (Inv. SG 975). Among the numerous busts, there are two that should be singled out: the portrait head of the pianist Elly Ney (Inv. SGP 140), which was exhibited and reviewed multiple times, and the portrait of Ottilie W. Roederstein (Inv. SGP 227).
