Helen Livingston - Broome

Livingston, the artistic alias of Helen Livingston Broom (1926–2022), was a self-taught artist whose six-decade career produced over two million textile-based fragments. Between New York’s United Nations Plaza and London, she transformed salvaged artifacts, couture remnants, and historical relics into vibrant canvas art, weaving memory, myth, and cultural resonance.

Born in Atlantic City, New Jersey, Livingston was the daughter of famed furrier Dean Bacher, whose salons at the Waldorf Astoria and in Miami Beach dressed royalty. A rebel from the start, she stole the spotlight at her debutante ball, descending in dungarees, a mink coat, and smoking a pipe, a bold act of many to follow.

Her lineage connected her to fashion icon Ralph Lauren and Hollywood’s Scirble family, but it was tragedy that truly shaped her art. After losing her first husband in a car crash, and her sons, John, to AIDS, and Jamie Livingston (1956–1997), to melanoma, Livingston finally found her voice. Jamie, a celebrated photographer, created the iconic Polaroid a Day project (1979–1997), inspired by the first and last camera his mother gave him.

“I was always an artist,” Livingston wrote. “But the world had to tell me so.”

Her canvas art, which she insis...

The Catholic University of America
Private university in Washington, D.C., United States

Graduate

Wake Forest University Solo Exhibition (Hanes Art Gallery, February 17–March 31, 1989)



United Nations Plaza Private Salons: Hosted exclusive exhibitions a 3,000-square-foot gallery, showcasing over two million fragments, including Frank Lloyd Wright stained-glass windows.