Helen Allen Smith ’90
Art has always been running through the veins of Helen Allen Smith ’90. “When I had my Kindergarten interview at Chapin,” she said, “I was asked what I wanted to be when I grew up. I don’t remember this, but I’ve been told my response was, ‘I want to be the director of my museum.’” Though Mrs. Allen Smith was informed that she didn’t have ‘her own museum’, her career in the art world has allowed her to acquire the beginnings of one, as the artwork that hangs in her apartment attests. On one wall there is a Vermeer-like photograph of the kitchen of someone who was recently deceased, on another a large collage of puzzle pieces that coalesce images of bridges and other urban and suburban symbols into cacophonous harmony, and in a corner, a dangling, chandelier-like sculpture. “I have a nasty collecting habit,” Mrs. Allen Smith says, but read passionate for nasty, and you have one of the driving impulses behind the woman who, since 2005, has been director of the PULSE contemporary art fair.
The fair, which takes place in Miami, New York and now London, was conceived of by Mrs. Allen Smith as a way to showcase emerging and established artists in a unique venue, and to provide an alternative to the established fairs such as Art Basel/Miami Beach and the Armory Show in New York. Since PULSE debuted in Miami in 2005, it has been an essential stop for anyone eager to see what today’s best artists are creating. Galleries, which are invited to participate in the fair by a selection committee, have had to ship artwork overnight to the fair because they’ve sold out of work so quickly. As a result, Crain’s New York Business association named Mrs. Allen Smith as one of 40 people under 40 to watch in 2007.
Mrs. Allen Smith credits Chapin with fostering her interest in art. “One of the best things about Chapin,” she said, “was that it allowed for a lot of creative freedom within its structure. I remember Mrs. Naitove letting me write history papers from an art historical perspective,” she added.
Though Mrs. Allen Smith knew at a young age that art would be part of her life, she wasn’t always infatuated with contemporary art. During her senior year at Chapin, she completed an individual study that was a stylistic comparison between Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel ceiling with Palestrina’s Missa Papae Marcelli. As an undergraduate at Duke, she wrote her thesis on Renaissance humanism. “I thought I wanted to be a professor who taught Old Masters,” Mrs. Allen Smith said. That impetus led her to graduate school at Christie’s, the legendary auction house, where one of her tutors encouraged her to broaden her interests. She wrote her thesis on Frank Dobson, a modern British sculptor, and since then, her fascination with contemporary art has only grown.
But translating that fascination into a career wasn’t a straightforward process. Mrs. Allen Smith worked for Christie’s in Rome before being selected to be one of four junior specialists-in-training at Christie’s in New York. “In the end, I was offered a job in American Paintings, and what I really wanted to do was work with contemporary art,” she said. After leaving Christie’s, Mrs. Allen Smith worked for an art advisor (someone who helps collectors research and acquire artwork), a gallery and then began her own consulting business before a British investor asked her to launch the Affordable Art Fair in New York, which she did. Out of that experience, PULSE was born.
As founder and director of PULSE, Mrs. Allen Smith does everything from seek sponsorship to field architectural proposals for the fair’s venues to work with noted artists, such as Takashi Murakami, on special curatorial projects. “There’s never any downtime,” Mrs. Allen Smtih said. “Each fair takes about a year to plan. But it’s great to build long-term relationships with artists, galleries and curators and to see new work.”
Seeing new work means devising new ways to present it at each year’s PULSE. “With so many art fairs these days,” Mrs. Allen Smith said, “the question becomes ‘How do you distinguish yourself from the others?’” It’s a question that she’s always excelled at answering.
Last updated 11.30.07
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