In the title compound, C(15)H(15)N(5)O, the benzene and pyridine rings make a dihedral angle of 30.86 (7)°. In the crystal, chains of mol-ecules are wrapped around the screw axes into compressed helices, through hydrogen bonding between the hy-droxy and cyano groups. The chains are linked by weak C-H⋯N and C-H⋯O inter-actions. The π conjugated unit of the mol-ecule is almost perpendicular to the helix axis, and the formation of the helix is allowed by a gauche-type torsion angle in the hy-droxy-ethyl tail. In this way, consecutive chromophore units along the chain are placed in a strict anti-parallel arrangement, and this is energetically favoured because of the high dipole moment of the mol-ecule.