Helen Duckworth was born in Yorkshire, England. She began painting as a teenager and emigrated to the United States in the 1960's. She studied intermittently at the Art Students League and the School of Visual Arts in New York City, concentrating on drawing and portraiture.

In 1977 she moved to South Carolina with her husband and two children. She now lives twelve miles from Charleston, close to marshland and rivers. "The air is thick with everything growing," she says, "which feeds my ideas for both painting and poetry. My paintings are about feelings," she continues, "I am trying to express through color and form, the full range of my own emotions."