PLEIN AIR HERITAGE
Colorado’s first female resident artist, Helen Henderson Chain (1849–1892), was born in Indianapolis and studied with Hudson River School painter George Innes before moving to Denver with her husband, James. There, they helped establish the Chain & Hardy Bookstore, which would eventually become the city’s first art gallery and publishing house. Converting a back room of the store to a studio, she taught art classes and sold supplies. Rather than paint the ladylike florals and still life paintings expected from women artists of her day, she preferred to tackle the rugged Colorado landscape en plein air. Dressed in corsets and long skirts, she scrambled up the area’s most notable peaks, art supplies in tow, becoming the first non-native woman to summit the 14,000-foot Mount of the Holy Cross. A true pioneer,…