Genealogical charts of Helen Tooker

23 illustrated charts tracing the ancestry of Helen Tooker's parents, Emily White Perkins and Harry Landon Tooker, back into early English, Irish and Scottish history. Sixteen of the charts are in black ink and seven are in black ink and watercolour.

Helen Tooker was born in Attleboro, Massachusetts, in the United States of America. Having studied art with a local painter in her teenage years, she then trained for a year at the Boston Museum School of Art before marrying and starting a family. Following her husband's death during the Great Depression, Helen supported her five children by working as a professional artist. Her work embraced many media, including sign painting and billboards, sculpture, calligraphy and fine portraiture. From 1947 until her death in 1998, she lived in Florida.
Helen Tooker had a lifelong interest in family history. Around 1955, she began working on a series of 23 richly illustrated charts incorporating the genealogical information she had collected over the years. These charts purportedly trace the ancestry of Helen’s parents, Emily White Perkins and Harry Landon Tooker, back into early English, Irish and Scottish history.

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Donated by Helen Martin Parramore, November 2008. Accession 891.

Helen Tooker was born in Attleboro, Massachusetts, in the United States of America. Having studied art with a local painter in her teenage years, she then trained for a year at the Boston Museum School of Art before marrying and starting a family. Following her husband's death during the Great Depression, Helen supported her five children by working as a professional artist. Her work embraced many media, including sign painting and billboards, sculpture, calligraphy and fine portraiture. From 1947 until her death in 1998, she lived in Florida.
Helen Tooker had a lifelong interest in family history. Around 1955, she began working on a series of 23 richly illustrated charts incorporating the genealogical information she had collected over the years. These charts purportedly trace the ancestry of Helen’s parents, Emily White Perkins and Harry Landon Tooker, back into early English, Irish and Scottish history.

Paper copies are held in the Centre for Lifelong Learning, University of Strathclyde, for display purposes.

The charts are fragile and several of them are torn or damaged around the edges.

Created by Anne Cameron, August 2012.

Copyright of the artist (expires 2068).

Upon the artist's death, the charts passed to her daughter, Helen Martin Parramore, who donated them to the University of Strathclyde in 2008.

None expected.

Helen Martin Parramore, 'Genealogy of Helen Tooker' (2009)

published