The Philadelphia Inquirer February 26, 2006



" Canals - Holland and Bucks County" at the Sabine Rose Gallery
by Victoria Donohoe

For featured artist Helena van Emmerik-Finn and five other Bucks county realist painters exhibiting a few works with her at Sabine Rose, the subject is canals, distilled by a personal vision.
   Van Emmerik-Finn, an artist with strong Dutch family ties, chiefly portrays Dutch canals and other things Dutch, while Sabine's regular exhibitors play a supporting role with New Hope canal scenes.
On an intimate scale, with a refined execution and subdued palette, many of van Emmerik-Finn's 47 painterly pastels have a great deal of charm. Yet hers is an art rooted in the past. For underlying many of these works is a mood of sentimental yearning -  the stereotypes of traditional Dutch old master landscape and still life painting are accepted and longed for, as if from a more innocent period of picture making.
This artist knows how to quote in a lively tradition based manner in Delft Vase with Hydrangea, the outstanding piece of this type. My preference is for humbler landscapes in low light such as Sheep and Yellow Boat that show the sturdy honesty of her subjects and her complete respect for the materials of her craft.