Naomi Williams Heller

Naomi Williams Heller was a painter who worked in Kansas City, Missouri, for more than fifty years. She belonged to the Kansas City Society of Artists and was celebrated for her portraits.

Naomi Williams was born in Catasauqua, Pennsylvania, in 1895. As a young adult, she attended the Philadelphia School of Design for Women, directed by Emily Sartain, where she studied painting under Robert Henri. In 1919, she married Dr. Edward P. Heller, a doctor who'd just returned from World War I. They moved to Kansas City with the completion of his military service.

In Kansas City, Naomi Williams Heller enrolled at the Kansas City Art Institute and studied painting with John Douglas Patrick and Ross Eugene Braught. After graduating in 1931, she began contributing her work to the annual Midwestern Artists' Exhibition, joined the Kansas City Society of Artists, and helped organize group exhibitions. In 1931, she donated two religious paintings to St. Andrew's Episcopal Church.

During the 1930s, Heller exhibited oil portraits of her friends and family members, receiving high praise from newspaper critics. She also had a solo exhibition at the Women's City Club in 1936, a popular venue for artists' shows at the time. 

In 1948, tragedy struck when the Hellers' car overturned during a vacation, killing Edward and leaving Naomi injured and traumatized. A widow at age fifty-three, Naomi Heller sold their spacious property and moved to a smaller home where she continued to paint. In 1959, she created a portrait of Charles F. Curry and donated it to the Home Savings Association. 

Naomi Williams Heller had three children, two of whom, Susan and Thomas Heller, went on to attend the Kansas City Art Institute during the 1940s. Heller died in 1988 in Kansas City at age ninety-two. While her career is under-documented, her legacy lives on in the relationships she built in the community.