Helen Ludwig (1911–2009)

Helen Ludwig was born in Tolland, Connecticut, the middle child in a family of 11 children.

Her father Alfred Ludwig owned an ice business and served in the Connecticut state legislature for a few terms, and her mother Bertha Trittenbach encouraged creativity in her children. Helen graduated from the Hartford Art School and moved to New York City. There, during the Great Depression, she was employed by the Works Project Administration to supervise children's art teachers.
She later moved west. Helen fell in love with San Francisco and frequently painted and sketched its landscape. She taught ceramics to neighborhood children and worked on her own sculptures, sketches, and paintings.

She began volunteering as an art teacher at agencies such as RCH Inc., for people with disabilities; the Richmond Senior Center; and the Boys and Girls Club of San Francisco. She published two books of her work, a collection of scenes of Golden Gate Park (1984) and Psychiatry for the Home and Garden (1970), and illustrated several others.