Helen Opper, M.A.
BIO
Helen Opper is a fine art appraiser, curator, advisor, and educator based in Oklahoma City. She is an Accredited Member of the Appraisers Association of America. Her professional specialization is in postwar, contemporary, and emerging art. Helen studied art history and French at Vassar College and the University of California at Berkeley and received her Masters degree in Museum Studies at New York University. After many years on both coasts, Helen returned to her hometown of Oklahoma City in 2015 in order to shift her focus to her immediate community. Through the diversity of her studies and work, she has become keenly aware of how the art world reflects the challenges of contemporary society. Helen knows that art should respond to the complexities of contemporary culture, politics, and identity, and she embraces work that questions the status quo and challenges the current world order. Make Art Mean Something!
COMMUNITY INVOLVEMENT
In addition to being an adjunct instructor in the Visual Art Department at Oklahoma City Community College, Helen is currently Vice President of Sunny Dayz, Inc., Oklahoma’s first and only mural festival dedicated to women and non-binary artists. She is also a Vice President of the Board of Directors for the Jewish Federation of Greater Oklahoma City. She sits on a number of additional committees and helps organize community volunteer events several times a year.
GOALS
To work with artists traditionally underrepresented in the fine art world.
To level the playing field by expanding equal access to avenues to artistic success through exhibitions and collaborations.
To help close the knowledge gap around the business of fine art.
To provide education about the role and importance of professional appraisals for client and artist advocacy.
To help build art collections which properly reflect the diversity of artistic practice and identity.
To empower clients to make decisions regarding their art collections that best meets their goals and needs while employing an ethics-, equity-, diversity-based practice.
ART HISTORICAL SCHOLARSHIP
Activist, feminist, and collective art practice
1960s-‘90s New York avant garde visual art
Exhibition history/theory
Finish Fetish movement
Pre-modern South and Southeast Asian architecture
Land and environmental art
Street art and murals
New media art
Courtesy Alexis Austin.
EDUCATION
Uniform Standards of Professional Appraisal Practice, The Appraisal Foundation
Certificate, Comprehensive Appraisal Studies Program, Appraisers Association of America
M.A., Museum Studies, New York University
B.A., Art History, University of California, Berkeley
JUST FOR FUN
One of Helen’s favorite things is in her spare time is to document her travels through photography. Interested in seeing more? Click here.