Blanche Lazzell: Becoming an American Modernist

This exhibition is organized by the Art Museum of West Virginia University and generously supported by Art Bridges.

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Blanche Lazzell: Becoming an American Modernist explores the pioneering artist’s lifelong pursuit of translating Modernism into an American art form and celebrates her largely unsung achievements in championing abstraction in the United States through painting and printmaking.

This exhibition surveys the full career of American modernist Blanche Lazzell (1878–1956). Celebrated for her masterful white-line woodblock prints, Lazzell considered herself a painter first and foremost—from her early days studying in West Virginia, New York, and Paris through Depression-era Federal Art Projects and as a longtime resident of Provincetown’s vibrant art colony.

Born and raised in the small community of Maidsville, West Virginia, Lazzell graduated from West Virginia University with a degree in fine arts in 1905. Seeking further instruction, she first enrolled in the Art Students League in New York City and then went on two extensive trips to Europe. There she immersed herself in the studios of avant-garde artists who explored abstraction through the new movements of Fauvism and Cubism. Lazzell embraced these influences in her own work, creating some of the first non-objective prints and paintings seen in this country. She eventually settled in the artist colony of Provincetown, Massachusetts, where she worked with Charles Hawthorne and Hans Hofmann, co-founded the Provincetown Printers, and became a leading figure in white-line color woodblock printmaking.

Including more than 50 paintings, prints, and unique works on paper drawn primarily from the Art Museum of West Virginia University’s permanent collection, the exhibition explores the artist’s lifelong pursuit of translating Modernism into an American art form and celebrates her achievements in championing abstraction in the United States.

The Art Bridges funding supported the development of Blanche Lazzell: Becoming an American Modernist, the most comprehensive exhibition devoted to the artist to date. This exhibition centers on a suite of large-scale abstract paintings she made in the 1920s that were among the most ambitious paintings for any American at the time. These paintings—amalgams of the European avant-garde worked through an American idiom—are even more remarkable for being created by a female artist from West Virginia driven by a single-minded devotion to modernist principles. Related sections of the exhibition showcase Lazzell’s winding paths through abstraction, realism, process, and media; these sections build an artistic context around these abstractions of the 1920s and demonstrate the centrality of these paintings to her professional career and personal trajectory. 

The exhibition is designed to introduce Lazzell’s truly groundbreaking work to a broad audience, to assert that Lazzell’s advanced thinking interrogates our existing modernist canon, and to offer visitors an onramp into artistic abstraction. Including more than 50 paintings, prints, and works on paper drawn primarily from the Art Museum of West Virginia University’s permanent collection, Blanche Lazzell: Becoming an American Modernist explores the artist’s lifelong pursuit of translating modernism into an American art form and celebrates her largely unsung achievements in creating and championing abstract art in the United States.

Top Image: Blanche Lazzell (1878-1956), The White Petunia, block cut 1932, printed 1954, color woodblock print, 14 1/2 x 12 5/8 in. Art Museum of West Virginia University Collection, gift of James C. and Janet G. Reed.

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Museum Programs

We look forward to offering the public and our members regular opportunities to engage thoughtfully with this exhibition. Stay tuned for additional program announcements, or join our newsletter to be informed by email.

Members Only Preview

FRIDAY, AUGUST 29, 11AM

PAAM Members are invited to an exclusive viewing of Blanche Lazzell: Becoming an American Modernist prior to tonight’s public opening.

Public Opening

FRIDAY, AUGUST 29, 6-8PM

The public is warmly invited to celebrate the opening of Blanche Lazzell: Becoming an American Modernist.

Companion Exhibition

ON VIEW SEPTEMBER 12 – NOVEMBER 2

White-Line Woodblock Prints from the Collection, curated by Christine McCarthy, will take a deeper look at the technique for which Lazzell was so well-known.

Exhibition Tours

TWICE MONTHLY, WEDNESDAYS FROM SEPTEMBER-NOVEMBER, 11AM | INCLUDED WITH $15 MUSEUM ADMISSION (FREE FOR MEMBERS)

PAAM’s Education Staff welcomes visitors on a tour of the exhibition. Together, we’ll take a closer look at Lazzell’s work and life and discuss her connection to and legacy within the Provincetown arts community.

Tours will be held on 9/3, 9/17, 10/1, 10/15, 10/29, 11/12, and 11/26.

Film Screenings

PUBLIC PREMIER: THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 25 AT 6PM, DOORS OPEN AT 5:30PM | INCLUDED WITH $15 MUSEUM ADMISSION (FREE FOR MEMBERS)

WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 5, 4PM AT THE FALMOUTH ARTS CENTER | FREE AND OPEN TO THE PUBLIC

The Provincetown Print is a captivating new documentary from PAAM celebrating the origins, artistry, and enduring legacy of Provincetown’s distinctive white-line woodcut tradition. Written and directed by Amy Davies. Watch the trailer.

Lecture Series

MONTHLY, SEPTEMBER-DECEMBER, 6PM | INCLUDED WITH $15 MUSEUM ADMISSION (FREE FOR MEMBERS)

PAAM will host a series of lectures with art historians, local artists, and experts in the technique of white-line woodblock printmaking beginning in September.

Stephen Orr is the author of two garden books, Tomorrow’s Garden and The New American Herbal. His upcoming book, The Gardener’s Mindset, a collection of his garden essays and photographs, will be published by Clarkson Potter/Random House in April 2026. He is the former editor-in-chief of Better Homes and Gardens. Previously he was the garden editor at Martha Stewart Living, House & Garden, and Domino magazines. He lives with his husband in Truro and writes for the Provincetown Independent. IG: steporr

Lynn Stanley is an artist, educator, and writer.  She received her BA from Smith College and her MFA in poetry from the University of Michigan. As a grant writer, teaching artist, and program developer she worked for two decades in non-profit arts administration, including seventeen years with the Provincetown Art Association and Museum.  Stanley curated over sixty art exhibitions at PAAM, with a focus on supporting the creativity of K-12 students and educators, in collaboration with local artists and schools along Cape Cod. An award-winning educator and writer, she’s applied her passion for arts education to generate exemplary programs for learners of all ages, including professional development workshops and Visual Thinking Strategies training for K-12 teachers, and the Art on the Edge, Art Reach, and Reaching Forward Mentor programs at PAAM. Stanley continues to be invested in arts education, and the ways artists can support children, teens, and adults through the transformative power of human connection and creativity.  Examples of her work can be found at www.bisforbird.com

Robert Bridges currently serves as the curator of the Art Museum of West Virginia University, with collection holdings of over 4,000 works of art. Bridges has curated more than a dozen museum exhibitions since the museum’s opening in 2015. Exhibitions include Blanche Lazzell: Becoming an American Modernist, Paintings and Sculptures by Sally and Peter Saul, Shepard Fairey: Work Against the Clampdown, a solo exhibition by Nina Chanel Abney, Independent Vision: Self-Taught Artists from Appalachia, and Studio Window: The Prints of Grace Martin Taylor. From 2001 to 2015, he organized over 80 exhibits in the Mesaros Galleries at the College of Creative Arts. Among them are the international exhibition Ceramic Art from the Jingdezhen Ceramic Institute and two national exhibitions featuring the work of American Modernist Blanche Lazzell. Bridges has written several book chapters and magazine articles. He is a co-editor of the book Blanche Lazzell, The Life and Work of an American Modernist (2004) from WVU Press.

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Museum School Programs

We are offering workshops with local teaching artists on the subject of white-line woodblock printing through our Lillian Orlowsky and William Freed Museum School. Workshops are open to the public, pre-registration is required.

The White-Line Woodblock Print with Darrell Smith

MONDAY AND TUESDAY, AUGUST 25 AND 26, 9:30AM-1:30PM | LEARN MORE AND REGISTER

Dive into the history of white-line woodblock printing as an original American art form originating in Provincetown.

This two-day workshop will cover examples from Blanche Lazzell, Grace Martin Taylor, Mabel A. Hewit, and Bror Julius Olsson Nordfeldt, and students will be able to view original prints from the PAAM collection. Students will also learn the step by step process of white-line including image transfer to a pine board, carving a simple matrix with an X-acto knife, and the initial paper printing stages with watercolor pigments.

The Provincetown Print with Bernadette Waystack

SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 13, 9:30AM – 3:30PM | LEARN MORE AND REGISTER

Bernadette Corbett Waystack is a painter, teacher and Harwich Port-based artist whose work explores the concepts of painting as prayer and of landscape as memory.  She is also a passionate practitioner of the  traditional method of white line woodblock printmaking developed in Provincetown in the early 1900’s.  A teaching artist with over thirty years of experience, she is in residence at The 204, Harwich’s Cultural Arts Municipal Building where she maintains a working studio space (Studio 205). Her work has been shown in numerous exhibitions including the Provincetown Art Association & Museum, Cape Cod Museum of Art, the Cultural Center of Cape Cod, Cotuit Center for the Arts and is found in private and corporate collections regionally.

The White-Line Woodblock Print with William Evaul

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 14 – WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 15 | LEARN MORE AND REGISTER

MONDAY, NOVEMBER 17 – TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 18 | LEARN MORE AND REGISTER

A Provincetown artist since 1970, William Evaul produces oil paintings and white-line woodblock prints as well as works on paper: drawings, watercolors and monotypes and monoprints. He employs a vibrant color palette and a kind of figurative expressionism to create a wide variety of images including musicians, New York skylines, nudes, wine bottle still lifes and a lively fauvist/cubist series called “Dancing Houses.” As an educator, curator and art consultant in the field of 20th Century Art, Evaul conducts art workshops in white-line wood cut printmaking, slide lectures on Provincetown Art History, organizes exhibitions, produces certified appraisals and can advise on collection management.

Studio Nights with Sylvia Tomayko-Peters // Multiple and Original: The Basics of Block Printing

WEDNESDAYS, OCTOBER 22 – NOVEMBER 5, 5-7PM | LEARN MORE AND REGISTER

PAAM Studio Nights are a series of weeknight events in which participants come together to enjoy artmaking in PAAM’s studios. Sign up for one or all three classes! This series features local artist, Sylvia Tomayko-Peters, who will demonstrate a variety of printmaking techniques, with plenty of time after the demos for participants to create and share art.

This three-part series delves into printmaking with a focus on the tension between creation and reproduction inherent in the medium. We’ll spend each class learning a new block printing technique, from the basics of carving and hand printing to using the presses and altering our work after it’s printed. We will pair our art making with discussions on how printmaking straddles the line between fine art and mass production. We will explore how we can use that tension in our work and how it has shown up in the lives of print makers historically, using the PAAM collection as a jumping off point.

All levels of experience are welcome! All materials included.

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