Provincetown Printers

Last updated
Blanche Lazzell, Tulips, white line woodblock print - called the Provincetown Print technique, 1920 Blanche Lazzell, Tulips, white line woodblock print, 1920.tif
Blanche Lazzell, Tulips, white line woodblock print - called the Provincetown Print technique, 1920

Provincetown Printers was an art colony in Provincetown, Massachusetts during the early 20th-century of artists who created art using woodblock printing techniques. [1] It was the first group of its kind in the United States, developed in an area when European and American avant-garde artists visited in number after World War I. The "Provincetown Print", a white-line woodcut print, was attributed to this group. Bror Julius Olsson Nordfeldt is credited with developing the technique, based upon Japanese ukiyo-e woodblock printing, though there is evidence that a lesser-known Provincetown artist, Edith Lake Wilkinson, was making white-line prints in 1914, a year earlier than Nordfeldt's first known efforts. Blanche Lazzell is said to have mastered the technique. Rather than creating separate woodblocks for each color, one block was made and painted. Small groves between the elements of the design created the white line. [2] Because the artists often used soft colors, they sometimes have the appearance of a watercolor painting. [3]

Contents

Agnes Weinrich, Broken Fence, a white-line woodblock made in or before 1917; at left: the woodblock itself; at right: a print pulled from the woodblook. Weinrich Broken Fence.jpg
Agnes Weinrich, Broken Fence, a white-line woodblock made in or before 1917; at left: the woodblock itself; at right: a print pulled from the woodblook.

Early artists in the group included Ethel Mars, Ada Gilmore, Mildred McMillen, Maud Hunt Squire, Juliette Nichols and Bror Julius Olsson Nordfeldt. Other artists included William Zorach, Ferol Sibley Warthen, Blanche Lazzell, Karl Knaths, and Agnes Weinrich. [1] Edna Boies Hopkins, a friend of Squires and Mars from the Art Academy of Cincinnati, also visited the community. [4]

Bill Evaul, a writer for Print Review in the late 1970s, was asked to write an article about "printmaking in Provincetown", but by that time many of the artists were no longer alive. Through research with Myron Stout and meeting with some surviving members, like Ferol Sibley Warthen, he learned the history about the Provincetown Print and later learned how to create works of art with the technique. Since then, he has promoted the white line woodcut technique in his historical research paper "Provincetown Printers: Genesis of a Unique Woodcut Tradition", taught and lectured about the technique, and has created and shown his version of the Provincetown Prints in exhibits. [5]

An exhibit of 75 works of art from this group was held at the Smithsonian American Art Museum from September 9, 1983 to January 8, 1984. [1] [6]

See also

Related Research Articles

Printmaking Process of creating artworks by printing, normally on paper

Printmaking is the process of creating artworks by printing, normally on paper, but also on fabric, wood, metal, and other surfaces. "Traditional printmaking" normally covers only the process of creating prints using a hand processed technique, rather than a photographic reproduction of a visual artwork which would be printed using an electronic machine ; however, there is some cross-over between traditional and digital printmaking, including risograph. Except in the case of monotyping, all printmaking processes have the capacity to produce identical multiples of the same artwork, which is called a print. Each print produced is considered an "original" work of art, and is correctly referred to as an "impression", not a "copy". However, impressions can vary considerably, whether intentionally or not. Master printmakers are technicians who are capable of printing identical "impressions" by hand. Historically, many printed images were created as a preparatory study, such as a drawing. A print that copies another work of art, especially a painting, is known as a "reproductive print".

Woodcut Relief printing technique

Woodcut is a relief printing technique in printmaking. An artist carves an image into the surface of a block of wood—typically with gouges—leaving the printing parts level with the surface while removing the non-printing parts. Areas that the artist cuts away carry no ink, while characters or images at surface level carry the ink to produce the print. The block is cut along the wood grain. The surface is covered with ink by rolling over the surface with an ink-covered roller (brayer), leaving ink upon the flat surface but not in the non-printing areas.

Color printing or colour printing is the reproduction of an image or text in color. Any natural scene or color photograph can be optically and physiologically dissected into three primary colors, red, green and blue, roughly equal amounts of which give rise to the perception of white, and different proportions of which give rise to the visual sensations of all other colors. The additive combination of any two primary colors in roughly equal proportion gives rise to the perception of a secondary color. For example, red and green yields yellow, red and blue yields magenta, and green and blue yield cyan. Only yellow is counter-intuitive. Yellow, cyan and magenta are merely the "basic" secondary colors: unequal mixtures of the primaries give rise to perception of many other colors all of which may be considered "tertiary."

Woodblock printing in Japan Ancient technique for reproducing images or text

Woodblock printing in Japan is a technique best known for its use in the ukiyo-e artistic genre of single sheets, but it was also used for printing books in the same period. Widely adopted in Japan during the Edo period (1603–1868) and similar to woodcut in Western printmaking in some regards, the mokuhanga technique differs in that it uses water-based inks—as opposed to western woodcut, which typically uses oil-based inks. The Japanese water-based inks provide a wide range of vivid colors, glazes, and transparency.

Bror Julius Olsson Nordfeldt American painter (1878–1955)

Bror Julius Olsson Nordfeldt was an American artist who painted seascapes and depictions of New Mexico's indigenous culture.

Ella Sophonisba Hergesheimer American painter

Ella Sophonisba Hergesheimer was an American illustrator, painter, and printmaker known for her portrayals of Tennessee society women and their children. As a printmaker, she pioneered the white-line woodcut.

Provincetown Art Association and Museum Art Museum in Provincetown, Massachusetts

The Provincetown Art Association and Museum (PAAM) is located at 460 Commercial Street in Provincetown, Massachusetts. It is accredited by the American Alliance of Museums and is the most attended art museum on Cape Cod. The museum's permanent collection includes over 2,500 objects, a number which continues to grow through donations and new acquisitions. PAAM mounts approximately forty exhibitions each year.

Book illustration

The illustration of manuscript books was well established in ancient times, and the tradition of the illuminated manuscript thrived in the West until the invention of printing. Other parts of the world had comparable traditions, such as the Persian miniature. Modern book illustration comes from the 15th-century woodcut illustrations that were fairly rapidly included in early printed books, and later block books. Other techniques such as engraving, etching, lithography and various kinds of colour printing were to expand the possibilities and were exploited by such masters as Daumier, Doré or Gavarni.

Blanche Lazzell American painter

Blanche Lazzell was an American painter, printmaker and designer. Known especially for her white-line woodcuts, she was an early modernist American artist, bringing elements of Cubism and abstraction into her art.

Agnes Weinrich American painter

Agnes Weinrich (1873–1946) was one of the first American artists to make works of art that were modernist, abstract, and influenced by the Cubist style. She was also an energetic and effective proponent of modernist art in America, joining with like-minded others to promote experimentation as an alternative to the generally conservative art of their time.

Mary Harvey Tannahill was an American painter, printmaker, embroiderer and batik maker. She studied in the United States and Europe and spent 30 summers in Provincetown, Massachusetts with the artist colony there. She was instructed by Blanche Lazzell there and assumed the style of the Provincetown Printers. She exhibited her works through a number of artist organizations. A native of North Carolina, she spent much of her career based in New York.

Anna Heyward Taylor was a painter and printmaker who is considered one of the leading artists of the Charleston Renaissance.

Edith Lake Wilkinson American painter

Edith Lake Wilkinson was an artist who lived and painted in Provincetown, Massachusetts during the early decades of the 20th century until she was committed to an asylum for the mentally ill in 1924. Wilkinson's life and work is highlighted in the film Packed in a Trunk: The Lost Art of Edith Lake Wilkinson.

Edna Boies Hopkins American artist (1872 — 1937)

Edna Boies Hopkins was an American artist who made woodblock prints, based upon Japanese ukiyo-e art and Arthur Wesley Dow's formula of three main elements: notan, a balance of light and dark, line and color.

Ethel Mars (artist)

Ethel Mars was an American woodblock print artist, known for her white-line woodcut prints, also known as Provincetown Prints, and a children's book illustrator. She had a lifelong relationship with fellow artist Maud Hunt Squire, with whom she lived in Paris and Provincetown, Massachusetts.

Maud Hunt Squire American painter and printmaker

Maud Hunt Squire was an American painter and printmaker. She had a lifelong relationship with artist Ethel Mars, with whom she traveled and lived in the United States and France.

Mabel Hewit

Mabel Hewit (1903–1984) was an American woodblock print artist, particularly the white-line style of the Provincetown Printers.

Elizabeth Colwell American printmaker and type designer

Martha Elizabeth Colwell was an American printmaker, typographer, and writer.

Ferol Katherine Sibley Warthen was an American painter and printmaker.

Ada Gilmore was an American watercolorist and printmaker, one of the Provincetown Printers.

References

  1. 1 2 3 "Provincetown Printers/A Woodcut Tradition". Smithsonian Institution. Retrieved February 2, 2017.
  2. ↑ "White Line: Blanche Lazzell and the Provincetown Printers". Swann Auction Galleries. Retrieved February 1, 2017.
  3. ↑ "Provincetown Prints". Steven Thomas, Inc. - Fine Arts and Antiques. Retrieved February 2, 2017.
  4. ↑ Dominique H. Vasseur (2007). Edna Boies Hopkins: Strong in Character, Colorful in Expression. Ohio University Press. p. 2. ISBN   978-0-8214-1769-0.
  5. ↑ Steve Desroches (September 5, 2012). "Bill Evaul: The Provincetown Printer". Provincetown Magazine. Retrieved February 2, 2017.
  6. ↑ Burchard, Hank (September 9, 1983). "A Vibrant Legacy of Forgotten Artists". The Washington Post .

Coordinates: 42°03′29″N70°10′44″W / 42.058°N 70.179°W / 42.058; -70.179

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.