[4] She was the granddaughter of Leopold Damrosch, a medical doctor turned music conductor and violinist of high esteem who had immigrated to the United States from Germany with his children in 1871.

[8] For many years she was a member of Jonas Lie's Memory Sketch Club, and she regularly studied under painter George de Forest Brush.

Soon after beginning work with the New York Zoological Society, Helen met apprentice zookeeper and ichthyologist John Tee-Van.

[8] In 1926 Helen exhibited two of her watercolor paintings at the first-ever show of scientific bird illustrations, held at the Los Angeles Museum of History, Science, and Art.

Organized by the American Ornithologists' Union', she was lauded for her "exquisite handling of pattern and color details of plumage.

Unique for the time, the Department was noted for employing numerous women illustrators and scientists to work on their expeditions.

Others employed by the Society at the time included Jocelyn Crane, Gloria Hollister, Harriet Bennett Strandberg, Else Bostelmann, Dwight Franklin, Laura Schlageter, Isabel Cooper Mahaffie, and Ezra Winter.

Miss Tee-Van has said the Sargossa, written and illustrated a book about South America, and many of her deep-sea designs are on exhibition in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.

In 1925, she was one of four women on the Arcturus expedition, along with Ruth Rose, Isabel Cooper, Lillian Segal, and Marie Poland Fish.

[25] The mural series was conceived by the director of the museum, Laura M. Bragg, who worked closely with Helen for weeks to fulfill her educational vision.

[28] The exhibit was the first time many of the original illustrations had ever been shown to the public, but it also presented a complex legacy of scientific research, racism, and colonialism.

For example, a large map she illustrated of Bermuda's Nonsuch Island while on expedition was featured in the aforementioned 2017 exhibition due to her casual inclusion of several racist, stereotypical caricatures.

In addition to her realistic, scientific illustrations meant for research and natural history purposes, Helen Damrosch Tee-Van also found time to contribute artistically to nearly twenty different books, four of which were her original manuscripts.

[32] The final three of Helen's four children's books, those written and illustrated in the 1960s, were storybooks that doubled as flora and fauna guides for young explorers.

Helen died while working on her final book, leaving her manuscript for Nature's Protection of the Animal Kingdom permanently unpublished.