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8 unusual facts about Helen Boehm


Helen Boehm

She married Edward Marshall Boehm, a veterinary assistant who raised livestock and created sculptures of animals in his spare time, in 1944.

She was born as Elena Francesca Stephanie Franzolin on Boxing Day 1920 to immigrants from Italy and raised in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn.

She took on the promotional side of the business, selling pieces to the Metropolitan Museum of Art and offering a porcelain bull to Mamie Eisenhower after wrangling an invitation to the White House.

There is a lack of copyright differentiation between the works produced during Edward Marshall Boehm’s lifetime, 1951–1969 and the works done after his death by the Boehm firm.

A luncheon invitation from First Lady Mamie Eisenhower helped make Edward Marshall Boehm's designs a standard gift from U.S. Presidents to foreign dignitaries.

Sculptures the firm produced after the death of Edward Boehm are owned by individuals including Queen Elizabeth II, Mikhail Gorbachev and Pope John Paul II at times reportedly range in value from hundreds to tens of thousands of dollars.

After the sudden death of her husband in 1969, Helen Boehm took over operation of the company and maintained the “Edward Marshall Boehmlogo.

Helen Boehm (December 26, 1920 – November 15, 2010) was an American businesswoman who played a pivotal role in promoting the ceramic sculptures created by her husband Edward Marshall Boehm, earning her the nickname the "Princess of Porcelain".



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