Blanche Lazell and the Color Woodcut: From Paris to Provincetown

by Barbara S. Shapiro

In the summer of 1915, the West Virginia-born artist Blanche Lazzell moved to Provincetown, Massachusetts, and joined a group of printmakers who would come to be known as the Provincetown Printers. Influential in introducing Japanese print techniques to the United States, these artists began to pursue a new method of printing from a single block, and invented a technique known as the white-line woodcut. Through her studies in Paris with Fernand Leger and Albert Gleizes, one of the chief exponents of Cubism, and her passion for French Modernism, Lazzell brought a modern flair to her prints--and, along with Georgia O'Keefe, was one of the first American women artists to work in a Modernist style. Tracing her career in Europe and America, and offering a selection of her woodblocks, drawings, paintings, ceramics, and hooked rugs, this book tells the story of Lazzell and the remarkably innovative circle of which she was a part. From Paris to Provincetown is the most comprehensive volume ever published on this influential yet little-known artist.

96 pages, Hardcover

First published January 15, 2002