Mrs. West’s Hats review – The Hat magazine

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Mrs West’s Hats
by Helen Couchman with an introduction by Anthony Gorman

Mrs. West’s Hats is the first publication in book form of a series of sixty photographic self-portraits produced by the artist Helen Couchman in 1997. The title of the piece refers to Couchman’s maternal grandmother, Mrs West (1909-1993). In the photographs Couchman, made up to look like a young woman of the austere 1940’s or ’50s, is seen wearing a succession of her grandmother’s hats, as though acting out the “role” of her own grandmother as she would have looked during that period.

Carole Denford
The Hat Magazine No. 43. November 2009, page 42