The William Clark Market House Museum in Paducah, Kentucky, has opened a new exhibit featuring 14 original paintings by Helen LaFrance, a self-taught artist from Graves County who lived from 1919 to 2020. The works are on loan from the Paducah Historic Preservation Group, which raised over $100,000 in 2024 to acquire them, and are supplemented by two additional paintings from private collectors, handmade dolls, and a quilt titled "The Fox Hunt." The exhibit will run through December 2025.
This exhibit matters because it preserves and celebrates the legacy of a significant Black American folk artist whose vivid memory paintings document the rural Southern Black experience and a vanishing way of life in western Kentucky. By making LaFrance's work publicly accessible—including pieces from private collections rarely seen—the museum and preservation group ensure that her nearly century-long visual record of community, joy, and progress remains part of regional history and cultural heritage.