Helen Kohen
When Helen Kohen retired as the Miami Herald’s visual arts critic in 1995 after 17 years, she left a clear hint of life beyond the newsroom. Kohen was not about to leave the visual arts scene that she was so much a part of grooming since moving to Miami Beach in the 1950s. “When I started writing for the Herald, Philip Johnson was at work designing the Center for the Fine Arts, and Roy Lichtenstein had just finished his mermaid sculpture for the grounds of the Jackie Gleason Theater of the Performing Arts. Clearly, those were the signs of a community preparing for a future in art. “And there I was, a case of perfect timing, primed to watch, report and get involved if I had to,” she wrote in her final column in May 1995. Kohen, who earned her Master’s in Art History at the University of Miami, sifted through six decades of locally produced television shows at the Lynn and Louis Wolfson II Florida Moving Image Archives to unearth Miami’s art history. She revealed her
findings and led the 2008 Wolfson Archives’ Rewind/Fast-Forward Film Festival. “Helen was the pioneer. She pulled out the rocks and tilled the soil. She made fertile ground so the art world could plant Miami Art Basel, the Wynwood Walls, and become a legendary destination for the aspiring and the acquisitive,” said Miami Beach artist Michele Oka Doner, in a conversation with Modern magazine editor Beth Dunlop. Widely regarded as one of Miami most active and engaged art experts, Kohen sought to inform her readership, members of the arts community, politicians and civic leaders. Kohen helped to create the Vasari Project, alongside art librarians Margarita Cano and Barbara Young with the support of Michael Spring, Director Emeritus of the Miami-Dade County Department of Cultural Affairs. An impressive archive at the Miami-Dade Public Library System, the Vasari Project catalogs and preserves more than 6,000 items that tell the story of visual art in Miami-Dade County.