2016 Art History Capstone Exhibition Catalog

1880 –1940: TRANSFORMING COMMUNITY

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Women Artists: Transforming Community 1880 – 1940

TABLE OF CONTENTS 04 05 07 08

Acknowledgements Preface Introduction Women Illustrators: The Forgotten Role of Illustration in Women’s Art History

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Social and Aesthetic Modernism: Blanche Lazzell and theProvincetown Art Colony

28 30 32 34 36 42 44

Women Artists: Transforming Community Activists Entrepeuners Explorers Groundbreakers Innovators Notes List of Works

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Exhibition Curators Megan Pereen Kelsey Rabbitt

Artist Studio and Education Curators Michael Cabral Taylor Penning Michael Cabral

Gallery Design Coordinator Kayla Angelini

Preparator Rea Bethel

Catalog Editing Team Stephanie Cramer Hannah Gadbois Greg Goins

Catalog & Invitation Design Team Liana DePillo James Ferguson Caroline Stjärnborg We would like to give special thanks to Stephen Borkowski and Julie Heller whose knowledge and expertise in Provincetown’s art community and the history of the Provincetown Printers was instrumental to the exhibition. We extend our gratitude once again to Cathy Little Bert of Bert Gallery in Providence for writing the preface to the catalog and to the Providence Art Club for their continuous partnership and support of the exhibition.

We extend our gratitude to the New England’s southeastern arts community, including: Julie Heller Gallery, Provincetown; Bert Gallery, Providence; Portsmouth Free Public Library, Portsmouth; Smith College’s Sophia Smith Archive, Northampton; University of Massachusetts Special Collection and Archive, Amherst; Providence Art Club, Providence; Providence Athenaeum, Providence; New Bedford Whaling Museum, New Bedford; Claire T. Carney Library, University of Massachusetts Dartmouth and private collectors for their enthusiastic support and who made this exhibition possible.

We are also grateful to CVPA faculty including those of the Art History Department, Stacy Latt Savage, Cathy Smilan, Anthony Fisher, Joy Miller and Dean Adrian Tió for their support and contributions.

Women Artists: Transforming Community 1880 – 1940

PREFACE

Written by Catherine Little Bert

For the art historian, curator, collector or art dealer it all begins with the work of art…the object. It is the object that informs you about the artist and the times. Your senses are flooded, the brain starts to rev up and the investigation begins.

How old is the work of art? Who is the artist? Is the medium unusual? Is this a common style for the period? What is the artist telling us? For too long women artists have been evaluated not based upon the work of art created but their gender, their friends and where they fit into the art historical canons of the moment. Is modernism in? Is realism out? Is painting dead? Our need as humans to construct theoretical models in all fields of study, whether it art history or physics, is useful but restrictive; especially if that individual is an outlier.

But…the beauty of the art world is that it is fluid, creative and open to re-interpretation.

For women artist’s context is indeed important and the bridge between the nineteenth and twentieth century was a life-changing time. Opportunities for women were not the same as men. A woman had to struggle to gain the credentials as a professional artist and required to have the strength to overcome obstacles to achieve that goal.

In the larger political arena women could not vote until 1920. This reflects not only a lack of voice in our society but limited access to many professional opportunities.

Despite social and educational barriers, women artists were able to achieve a great deal. Critical reviews, exhibitions, commissions, memberships, studios, career experience and community involvement all point to tangible evidence that indeed women were present and active in the nineteenth and twentieth century art world.

Women Artists: Transforming the Community (18801940) shows the activity and accomplishments of women artists across the country in the decorative and fine arts.

The exhibit looks at the art objects anew without the harness of traditional chronological art historical treatises or

bias. Rather it looks at circles of learning among women, where did women meet, learn and join fellow artists to evolve art culture in America at a historical time where utilitarian & practical needs dominated the country.

American society was transformed during the “fin de siècle,” embracing a cultural front that looked to its European roots but sought its own identity. New England saw the growth of art clubs; museums and historical societies and women artists were there at every crossroad. Six of the founders of the Providence Art Club were women; the 1876 Philadelphia Centennial women’s committee founded the Rhode Island School of Design and by 1880, twenty-five percent of the artists listed in the Providence City Directory were women.

Women artists made the regional art scene vibrant along side their male colleagues. But many of their stories have been lost and overlooked in the survey art history textbooks. Their works were not exhibited in museums for many years. The very cultural institutions they founded ignored them.

Fortunately, works of art by women have survived and these objects give testimony to the quality, insight and importance of women as art producers in America.

In museum storage racks, historical societies and family attics we have first hand evidence of what women artists created and how they contributed to the communities and the institutions they frequented.

Eliza Gardiner, Grace Albee, Mabel Woodward are but a few of the professional women artists in New England that produced significant work in their lifetime and are examined in Women Artists: Transforming the Community (1880-1940). Their story is told through the objects they created and explored with a new art historical frame of reference erasing the boundaries that have encumbered women artists and obscured their contributions to the world of art.

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Women Artists: Transforming Community 1880 – 1940

INTRODUCTION Written by Anna Dempsey

When Linda Nochlin wryly queried, “Why have there been no great women artists?” over forty years ago, many scholars and critics responded to her challenge to correct the historical record. Feminist historians note that ‘”thousands and thousands of girl students’” attended art academies right after the Civil War. Yet, few of these female artists have secured a place in the modern art historical canon. Critical focus on individual male avant-garde artists has limited our understanding of women’s contributions to American modernism. In part, this has to do with the valorization of the “fine” over the commercial and artisanal arts—the media in which most professional women artists worked during the early twentieth century. In addition, art history’s association of modernism with an avant-garde visual language excludes those artists who employed traditional representation in support of progressive social goals, community education and women’s suffrage —activities long associated with upper-class women. Working artists now joined their well-off sisters in promoting these goals.

Finally, art history’s focus on the individual ignores the importance of the artistic community in the creative process. This exhibit also expands the definition of modernism to include working women who were commercial illustrators, engravers, woodblock printmakers, children’s book artists, book-cover designers and representational fine artists, as well as the communities they formed to support each other and to showcase their art.

For five years, the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth’s art history professors, Anna Dempsey and Allison J. Cywin directed a group of upperclassmen to execute a professional museum quality exhibition and publication. The intent of the course project is to provide students with a collaborative opportunity whereby students work in teams and apply their academic knowledge to a real world experience. For 2016, this student-run exhibition explores the definition of modernism and focuses on the feminine artistic communities that extended from Providence to Provincetown. The women artists represented in the exhibition are: Blanche Lazzell, Agnes Weinrich, Lucy L’Engle, Ethel Mars, Maud Hunt Squire, Grace Albee, Eliza D. Gardiner, Frances Eliot Gifford, Sarah J. Eddy, Sarah Wyman Whitman, Mabel Woodward, Alice Barber Stephens, Blanche Ames Ames and Frances and Mary Allen, among others. This exhibition is made possible through the generous support of the southeastern regional arts community, including the Julie Heller Gallery of Provincetown, Bert Gallery of Providence, Portsmouth Free Public Library, Smith College’s Sophia Smith Archive, University of Massachusetts Special Collection and Archive, Providence Art Club, The Providence Athenaeum, New Bedford Whaling Museum and private collectors.

Alice Barber Stephens (American 1858-1932) Ladies Home Journal, June 1905 Magazine 16” x 11.25” Anonymous Ladies Home Journal, September 1897 Magazine 16” x 11.25” Anonymous

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Women Illustrators: The Forgotten Role of Illustration in Women’s Art History

WOMEN ILLUSTRATORS

The Forgotten Role of Illustration in Women’s Art History

Gregory Goins with research by Caroline Stjärnborg

Deemphasized and occasionally discarded from the historical record in favor of the traditional fine arts, illustration history and criticism has been ignored by art historians.

In 2010 design critic Rick Poynor remarked that even today illustration still lacks “a strong critical framework by which to assess it.”1 In the five years following his essay, historians have generally not inserted illustration history into the visual arts curriculum. Clearly, the period surrounding the turn of the twentieth century has received some critical attention. This period is known as the “Golden Age of Illustration”2 a time when illustrators rose to prominence and even fame.3 Arguably, this paralleled the technological and cultural changes of the nascent modernist culture. In an era where the formally radical modernist art seen in galleries was generally “incomprehensible to the masses”4 illustrators communicated the social culture of modernism to an increasingly visual and textually literate audience. This audience was engaged by the output of these working artists, which although formally conservative, was often conceptually progressive, through its representation of social movements such as women’s suffrage. Importantly, these narratives were open to artist interpretation by women for the first time, leaving behind a deeply interesting and alternative visual record of modernism that imaged a culture in transition, socially and technologically.

As museums such as the Tate Modern (whose curators launched a full scale retrospective of Sonia Delaney in 2015) attempt to move female modernists from beneath their husbands’ shadows into the spotlight, the blatant dismissal of illustration becomes increasingly unforgiveable. Linda Nochlin in her influential 1971 article “Why Have There Been No Great Female Artists?” points to the imposed hierarchy of canonical aesthetics and individual artistic prominence (or biographical mythology) over social context as the cause for the dismissal of women’s artistic achievements.5 That is, under the conventional reading of art history, women can’t have been successful because we don’t know about their successes. Interestingly enough, empirical evidence from the field of illustration, directly contradicts Nochlin’s thesis. We know that female illustrators had achieved success, which matched and often times exceeded that of men, an achievement that was even recognized in publications of the day. Though women were sidelined in fine art institutions, in one year, female illustrator Jessie Willcox Smith earned more for a single image than any other professional illustrator.6 These women, who tackled social issues produced art across a variety of media, thanks to the growth and transformation of the publishing industry.

Alice Barber Stephens (American, 1858 - 1932) The Old Peabody Pew, 1905 Monograph 8.75” x 6” Courtesy of the Claire T. Carney Library, University of Massachusetts Dartmouth

Women Artists: Transforming Community 1880 – 1940

Many contemporary theorists and historians equate socio-political modernism with a desire to remain at the progressive edge, an obsession with mass production, and a wish to image a changing world. Nevertheless, these women and even male illustrators are neglected in critical, historical discourse, save the numerous publications about Victorian periodicals — writings often tethered to an exclusively Victorian context. Rather, the narrative of transition to formal abstraction is still championed as the story of modernism.

The lack of discussion surrounding illustration and its relationship to modernity, is unsurprising given art history’s marriage to an aesthetic modernist theory. Given that most illustrations are mass-produced, illustration fits neatly into Clement Greenberg’s definition of kitsch7 rather than fine arts. Illustrators’ use of traditional representational style in the face of formal modernity also denies its practitioners a spot in the history of “good design,” a parallel modernist narrative centered on the Bauhaus which celebrates rather than scorns mass-production. László Moholy-Nagy, the intellectual head of the movement in Europe and America, shared the pejorative connotations of the word “illustrative” with Greenberg.8 Furthermore, Mohly-Nagy even suggests that “old ideologies” (here conflated with formal conservatism) combined with industrial technology are tied to the totalitarian regimes and warfare related horrors of the 20th centuries.9 To the Bauhaus theorist, the politically and conceptually progressive were not mutually exclusive. Illustration was not disqualified from his notion of “good design” through its use of the machine, but by how it used the machine, namely by not following the avant-garde precedents set by male European artists.

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László Moholy-Nagy (Hungarian 1895 - 1946) Photogram, 1926 Gelatin Silver Print, 9.4 x 7 in.

Courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of Art

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Women Illustrators: The Forgotten Role of Illustration in Women’s Art History

The historical corridors, reserved for “avant-garde” and “good design,” which have been so effective in shutting out illustration, have created a restrictive, gendered space in art history. Golden-Age Illustration cannot fulfill the avant-garde’s aesthetic fetishism for a simple reason: the presence and nature of its clients.10 The insistent presence of the client separates illustration from the largely theoretical and idealistic work of the Bauhaus, and partly from the work of the galleries, which served the wealthy and educated. The almost complete dismissal of illustration as a valid art form is likely a product of the retrospective filtering of modernism’s invented evolutionary track. Many early illustrators, including the influential Howard Pyle, regarded themselves as fine artists. They aligned themselves philosophically with movements that supported the insertion of the applied arts into the canon, such as the Aesthetic and Art and Crafts movements,11 an acceptance the modernists generally resented.

Pyle’s disciples would follow his aesthetic lead, but would also engage with more socially conscious subject matter, especially fellow Philadelphians Alice Barber Stephens and Jessie Willcox Smith.

Their interest in social content should have aligned them with conceptually progressive theorists such as artist and designer Moholy-Nagy. But these early progressive illustrators still do not appeal to contemporary critics who favor the “traditional” avant-garde. Perhaps this represents an extant sense of “Graphic imperialism” against direct representationalism as Poynor argues.12 More likely, it is a continued filtration of history. This is a problem with graphic art history that graphic designers have already recognized. Print magazine printed an article in 1991 arguing that the contemporary obsession with “modernist” graphic design is a byproduct of “bad history,” when “we see a modernism that [is] deceptively cool, deceptively pretty”13 divorced from more accurate graphics that respond to the social pressures of a turbulent time. Writings on illustration should not need to invoke the tone of an apologia to correct this bias. The plurality of directions the field offered, should be evidence enough to defend the inclusion of illustrators in a narrative of a changing artistic guard.

Discussion of radical ideas within the field of illustration must not disguise the fact that the field followed the cultural trends of the era closely. Golden Age Illustration reflects societal changes through its thematic scope, especially in the context of an expanding periodical press.14 Illustration is defined only by the act of illustrating, that is manifesting something visually that often references a textual source. Illustrations bolstered printed content, initially with news bulletins in Britain,15 and then in monthly and weekly periodicals. Publishers and editors deployed illustrations to provide the magazine with a distinct identity. They allowed visual culture to be “disseminated to substantial numbers of people for the first time in history.”16 Illustration was art for the masses, and to some extent, maintained the cultural status quo. This is not to deny that illustration was a progressive genre. Rather, as Michele Bogart states, “the development of modern art in all its aspects was intrinsically bound up in the same social frameworks the produced mass-market periodicals, and hence illustration and and advertising art.”17 The important early and continual focus of this shared social framework is the mass-market, the newly opened mass communication networks and channels that had opened to illustrators, but would later allow them to affect serious social change.

Wood engraving, a traditional printmaking medium, represents the most common technology utilized by early illustrators. To create a woodblock print, the illustrator etches a linear rendering of the drawing into a block of wood, which he or she then directly utilizes in the printing process. The technology, perfected in the late eightieth century,18 allowed both pictures and text to be placed on the same page, creating for the first time diverse layouts that juxtaposed the two formats. This allowed illustrators to occasionally wrestle the control of the narrative from the author.19 Many early illustrations were actually scientific or technical in nature, but the artistic applications of woodblock were quickly applied to print lockups, where the wood engravings could be combined with letterpress type.

From these early linear and highly economic illustrations, the field expanded, including stone lithography for marquee pieces shortly after the technology was introduced.20 Later technologies, like the halftone process, which was perfected during illustration’s golden age21 would finally liberate the field from any technical restrictions. With this process, which would impact illustrators later on, anything that could be photographed could be an “illustration.” Unsurprisingly, illustrators pursued these technologies because they narrowed the gap between the printed page and the original, thus more closely rendering the artist’s original intent.

Howard Pyle (American 1853-1911) An Attack on a Galleon, 1905 Oil on canvas 29.5 x 19.5 in Delaware Art Museum Howard Pyle pioneered the stylistic and academic direction of illustration’s golden age, mentoring generations of working artists.

Women Artists: Transforming Community 1880 – 1940

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“Dedicated women’s magazines would open doors to women, which would ultimately empower and liberate them.”

As the periodical business expanded, offering new niches for expression, this newfound ability to communicate with a plethora of techniques would be useful for illustrators and art directors. Illustrations had already proved effective, as evidenced by publications such as Uncle Tom’s Cabin. In this text, artists participated in the visualization of slavery, and ensured the success of the novel.22 Further challenges to the status quo occurred with the simultaneous rise of women’s periodicals and the increased focus on women as cover figures for a wide array of periodicals. The feminine figure began to factor prominently in magazine design in the late twentieth century, and continues to remain a staple for periodicals today. Early images of women on many well-known magazine covers were stereotypical. Illustrators often parodied the early movements in women’s suffrage, while simultaneously mocking feminine appearance and fashion.23 Writers in dedicated women’s magazines would later shift this focus to a more liberal, if restrained stance on suffrage,24 while the female figure continued to define and sell almost all magazines.

Charles Dana Gibson, one of Howard Pyle’s “descendants, became illustration’s first “celebrity” with his creation of the “Gibson Girl.” Painted for numerous magazine covers, she was the “epitome of the gracious hostess, coy socialite, ideal sweetheart, refined life and later, the unflappable mother.”25 For a male Victorian, she was the archetype of the idealized female. For Gibson, this prototypical modern woman allowed him to become the first financially successful illustrator. Although he initially earned only $4 per image, he was soon making over $1000 for each of his Gibson Girls.26 Soon magazines would also offer women illustrators an opportunity to portray the modern woman.

Many social factors influenced the acceptance of women’s suffrage and equal rights. War was the impetus for women entering the field of illustration. With the American Civil War in 1861, the workforce was depleted of men. American society found itself with a surplus of women who had no potential suitors. These women were among the first to escape the confines of the domestic sphere, due to the financial burden they placed on their families.27 Many of these young women traveled to Northeastern cities to pursuit academic advancement, or to join one of the many northern artistic communities. Manufacturing centers and publications were the main source for women’s employment. Thus many opted to become applied or commercial artists.28 For women, this was not a difficult choice because artistic pursuits were considered feminine.

Although run by men, dedicated women’s magazines would open doors to women, which would ultimately empower and liberate them. It is important to note these publications did not serve a niche, but were instead, widely popular among a diverse audience. Historically, the Ladies Home Journal is equally important as the more widely recognized Saturday Evening Post.29 In this era, “Magazines helped women liberate themselves by vastly expanding their cultural and intellectual horizons which made obsolete some of the stigmas of the past.”30 The few emerging women illustrators would find work with these publications. For example, Alice Barber Stephens’ portrayal of women in the Ladies Home Journal would set a precedent for female illustrators to follow.31 Stephens’ career represents one of the first successful careers in illustration. Even during her lifetime, she was recognized as a pioneer. Nonetheless, she has been largely absent from the historical narrative. While some museums mounted exhibitions of her work in the 1980’s, she still remains largely unknown. Although her achievements are not considered the equal of Charles Gibson’s, she did inspire a generation of early twentieth century female illustrators who also became financially successful.

Alice Barber Stephens was born July 1, 1858, on a farm near Salem, New Jersey to a second generation English Quaker Family,32 a sect noted for their liberal and progressive leanings. When her family relocated to Philadelphia, she enrolled in the Philadelphia School of Design for Women, 33 becoming a member of the first generation of female artists who acquired the skills necessary to make a living in the arts. Stephens’ studied woodblock printing, a skill which proved to be financially lucra-

Charles Dana Gibson (American, 1867 - 1944) Gibson Girl, 1890

Alice Barber Stephens (American, 1858 - 1932) Women’s Life Class, c. 1879 Oil on cardboard 12 x 14 in Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts Museum Stephens illustrates a life drawing class at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, where women were allowed to draw from the nude.

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Women Illustrators: The Forgotten Role of Illustration in Women’s Art History

tive and allowed her to be self-sufficient at the age of fifteen.34 As a pragmatic professional, she saw education as a means to achieve success in the industry.

In 1876, she enrolled in the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts under Thomas Eakins’ controversial leadership (he allowed female students access to nude male models).35 This would cement Stephens’ place in an educational community that was beginning to value gender equality and new art education methodologies. Indeed, Stephens continued to pursue some form of education for the remainder of her life. She studied in Europe and in the United States, where she sought guidance from the well-known American illustrator Howard Pyle. Stephens’ prestige grew, and she became particularly associated with skillful renderings of mystery stories. For a time, she was known as the “mistress of mysteries”.36 In 1897, she helped co-found The Plastic Club of Philadelphia 37 and produced the most critically discussed work of her career, a series of illustrations for the Ladies’ Home Journal entitled “The American Woman.” These illustrations depicted a diverse class of women in both the domestic and public spheres. Moreover, they trace the transition away from the Victorian to the modern,38 and anticipate the emergence of the “new woman,” an archetype the artist herself partially embodied.

Though she was a “new woman” with a lucrative career, Stephens still somewhat adhered to Victorian domestic values. Her domestic life sometimes took precedence over her professional career,39 a gentle conflict reflected in the work of this period. This complication is indicative of the complexities that impacted illustration. The client’s needs, so to speak, were only one of the factors that informed an image’s meaning.

Stephens’ 1897 illustration, The Woman in Business, which is part of her The American Woman series, demonstrates the power of illustration. In it, Stephens’ portrays department store “shop-girls” as women, a radical title in the context of the late nineteenth century. The illustration is a literal cross-section of a department store, featuring women densely crowded along a single-point perspectival line. This abundance of women was atypical, even among the other works in this series. In this single panel, Stephens addresses class, consumerism and public spaces, focusing all the while on the relatively new entry of women to these areas. Here the conflict between client and illustrator is apparent, as the piece was particularly at odds with the editorial direction of the magazine under Edward Bok (who was opposed to most of the advancements of women, but was not opposed to creating work that sold magazines). 40 The image reflects the larger societal shifts of the late nineteenth century, the emergence of the department store on the stage of American commerce. What separates the department store’s rise from being an exclusively consumerist narrative is the presence and role of women within these commercial organizations. Department stores framed a women’s sphere, behind and in front of the counter. Stephens’ illustration portrays a bustling world of shop workers behind her counter, exclusively women. This reflects the reality of American department stores at the time, which had a large female workforce. Stephens’ illustration is set in Wanamaker’s Department store where, a decade earlier “there were so many female employees … that the store opened a residence hotel for them.”41 Thus, the Wanamaker’s known by the Ladies Home Journal readers of 1897 would have been an established home for women, uniquely transcending a typical workplace space.

Like the majority of Stephens’ subjects, the Wanamaker’s “girls” are complicated women. Most clearly, they represent the working class woman, they hold jobs that reflect the cheapness of women’s labor.42 Nevertheless, saleswomen of this era transcended the stereotype of the “working woman,” they became something more. At Wanamaker’s, the services the “shop-girls” received would have extended to pension, savings, and medical clinic.43 Although exploited for cheap labor, the Wanamaker’s girls were empowered and educated to a degree by the company. Elsewhere in the nation, saleswomen demanded to be called “salesladies” over “shop-girls,” signaling their desire to be treated with the dignity their position demanded.44 This attitude was reinforced by the small chance these women did have of upward mobility – the top paid women at Macy’s in 1871 would have received $25 per week in contrast to the average “girl’s” $5.45 Stephens’ saleswomen carry knowledge of the complex gender and social norms of the time.

Nonetheless, she portrays them sincerely and professionally—and shows the dignity of the “working girl.” The composition also showcases the division between the classes. Here, as in actual department stores, the class boundaries are manifested physically by the counter, which was “a line of battle in

Alice Barber Stephens (American, 1858 - 1932) The Woman in Business, 1897 Oil on Canvas 18” x 25” Brandywine River Museum Philadelphia readers would have recognized Wannamaker’s department store in this 1897 illustration for Ladies Home Journal. Stephens focused on commercial interactions in a cross-section of female society.

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Women Illustrators: The Forgotten Role of Illustration in Women’s Art History

the struggle between those who sold and those who shopped.”46 The central figure of The Woman in Business is not the saleswomen, but the customer, who asserts her class through dress and her canine companion. Closely examining merchandise, she meets the gaze of the saleswomen with a strong implied line. In this illustration, Stephens images the counter as a frequent site of conflict, where daily “the customer and the saleswomen each … [asserted] superior knowledge about the style and quality of merchandise.”47 Although Stephens portrays the emergence of the modern woman (somewhat against editorial wishes), she seems to be suggesting this new public interaction between women is rooted in class conflict. The conflict and ambiguity is reflected in the young girl in the right foreground. Interpreted by some as an avatar of the future of the working class,48 she holds an ambiguous expression as she exits the frame. Perhaps this is Stephens’ ultimate conflict as a woman in business herself. Innovating in a male dominated field, her work was at times judged equally to that of men, deemed by Harper & Brother’s as “beyond criticism.” Her work was, also at turns, dismissed with pejorative language. Leslie’s Weekly scorned her sketches as “sweet,”49 a term not often associated with the style Stephens created in this period. The Woman in Business reflects the conflicts evident in American culture regarding working women. Indeed, art directors and educators questioned what roles women would hold in the future of the profession—and we see this tension in Stephens’ work.

Stephens tried to ensure that there would be a strong female presence in the future illustration world. In addition to her professional career as an illustrator, she was also an educator. Although she turned down a position at her alma mater (PAFA) in 1899 due to health concerns, she did return to The Philadelphia School of Design for Women. While there, she continued Eakins’s legacy and allowed her students to draw from the nude. Her relationship with students extended outside the classroom.

She befriended and mentored her former student Charlotte Harding, who would go on to contribute to illustration’s golden age.50 By the time she retired at sixty-eight in 1926, she had collected many medals from exhibitions in Atlanta, London, Paris and her native Philadelphia.51 This represented a rare recognition for women in the arts. Throughout her career, Stephens helped to dismantle the perception that female artists were inherently weak. In 1900, one biographer wrote that he was surprised to find that she worked as “hard as any businessman.”52 Stephens’ artistic legacy provides a lens into the development of a new female professional artistic identity. At this time the Victorian model gave way to the “new woman.”

Alice Barber Stephens’ career serves as a template for other women, notably Jessie Willcox Smith, a fellow Philadelphian. Smith’s lifestyle and aforementioned success as an illustrator is particularly remarkable considering she was “raised in a rigid Victorian society where women’s roles were clearly defined in a society where a single woman was lucky to earn her own living much less make thousands of dollars each year.”53 Smith was able to rise above confining gender norms and become a very successful illustrator for Good Housekeeping. During the early twentieth century, her illustrations helped to maintain Good Housekeeping’s brand just as Normal Rockwell’s work would for the Saturday Evening Post. As with Alice Barber Stephens, art education proved invaluable to Jessie Willcox Smith’s career.

Initially, she enrolled in the Philadelphia School of Design for Women but did not remain there as she believed the school was not tailored to her aspirations. The School of Design focused more on the traditional crafts – embroidery, weaving and textile instead of illustration, the more contemporary career path.54 Smith decided to instead enroll at Stephens’ alma mater, the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts.

While there, she also studied under Thomas Eakins and was exposed to the same progressive arts education that Stephens’ had received. Smith graduated in 1888 and found early success as a freelance illustrator, and then later in the advertising department of the Ladies’ Home Journal.55 Smith’s passion to excel fueled her desire to pursue further education in the arts. She enrolled at the Drexel Institute of Arts in Philadelphia.56 During her time at Drexel, Smith transformed her creative process after studying with Howard Pyle, one of few notables of Golden Age illustration to survive in the larger fine arts canon. With Pyle, Smith was able to see illustration, “in a light different from that of a ‘pot-boiler’”57.

Smith’s new-found sincerity propelled her career to new heights. Her positive relationship with the influential Pyle helped her secure opportunities to exhibit her work to the public in 1897.58 At this time, concurrent with Stephens’ career peak, Smith was just beginning her professional

Jessie Willcox Smith (American, 1863 - 1935) Good Housekeeping Cover, 1925 Instead of creating romantic or idyllic imagery, Jessie Willcox Smith focused on representing the activities of mothers and their children.

Women Artists: Transforming Community 1880 – 1940

career in illustration. She would go on to financially and professionally eclipse Stephens and many male colleagues in the coming decades. Partially, this is due to Smith’s focus on maternal subjects, and the impression that Smith’s women were “realistic.” Her images appealed to the women who read the magazine.59 This notion of a realistic and accurate feminine identity is truly progressive, it transcends the purely formal exercise most modernist painters employed. This is not to suggest that Smith’s work is devoid of any formal experimentation. Although known for her representational style, her illustrations are notable for their distinct visual language (Her children were not Kate Greenaway’s cherubs.

Rather, they were active, recognizable young persons with distinct personalities). Smith’s strong outlines and flattened graphic style created “the simplicity and clarity of a stained glass panel.”60 She created a popular aesthetic used in both the publication and advertising industries. Illustration commissions allowed Smith to attain professional status and financial independence in the modernist era.

Unlike her fine-art peers who catered to the elite and the wealthy, Stephens work was popular with middlebrow readers.

Despite the opportunities afforded to artists like Stephens and Smith, illustration as a career was not wholly open to women. Its primary professional organization, the Society of Illustrators, resisted female membership for three years. The members begrudgingly admitted prominent illustrators like Smith, but only with limited access to the club’s benefits.61 Illustration’s attempt at self-definition could be interpreted as purposefully gendered, consistent with the fine-arts culture of the day. More likely, it was a result of a deliberate attempt to ignore and discourage women who were contributing and earning the same financial remuneration as men. The financial success of these women artists defied the attempts of their male colleagues to shut them out, and their documented legions of admirers ensured their messages were read.

Women’s art societies emerged in the face of this more reactionary, gender bias. This coincided with the rise of women’s clubs, but manifested itself uniquely in the art world. With the emergence of working women artists, and the denial of admission to art’s societies, they demanded space to meet and share ideas. Along with other women, Alice Barber Stephens and Jessie Willcox Smith founded The Plastic Club of Philadelphia in 1897. Led by artist Emily Sartain, the club was notable for its successful women. Other founding members included the “Red Rose Girls,” a radical art collective made up by Violet Oakley, Elizabeth Shippen Green and Jessie Willcox Smith. Formed “to promote a wider knowledge of art and to advance its interest by means of exhibitions and social intercourse among artists,”62 the club was quickly met with derision from male artists and art critics in the area,63 who were apparently unsatisfied with merely excluding women from their societies.

The Plastic Club thrived despite some negative criticism. Members organized shows, exhibitions and educational events. Stephens and Smith both regularly held lectures and classes for the club, and Howard Pyle frequently visited and helped the women. Although the club began life as a space for women, many imporant male artists were affiliated with it. In addition to Pyle, they included Maxfield Parrish and Henri Matisse. Parrish and Matisse both maintained contact with The Plastic Club, exhibiting, donating and lecturing there. Pyle was particularly influential to club members’ careers. Over twenty-five were his personal pupils, and “His guidance and teaching were a strong contributing factor to the success of these artists.”64 The Plastic Club represented an important organization for equalizing women and men in the professional art world. By creating a woman’s version of the fraternities men had built, The Plastic Club represented an important cultural institution for the art community. The club still exists today. Although now a co-educational organization, the doors to the club remain open today and continue to exert a long-lasting influence on the Philadelphia and national American art communities.

Careers like Stephens’ and Smith’s and extant societies such as The Plastic Club provide evidence of the power and influence women had on the arts — despite efforts to remove them from the modernist and historical narratives. Moreover, female illustrators’ success underscores the importance of illustration to America’s modernist social and political culture. Illustration’s story is one of commu-

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Unidentified Photographer The Plastics Club, c. 1901 Photographic Print, Sepia. 4.7 x 6.7in

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Women Illustrators: The Forgotten Role of Illustration in Women’s Art History

nication, of a dialogue between the ordinary citizen and visual culture, one that was more effective and impactful, if not as lasting as the modernist theories of Moholy-Nagy and Greenberg (at least for now). Women illustrators such as Alice Barber Stephens reached wider audiences than Moholy-Nagy’s theories did. Numerous middle-class Americans were more familiar with the work of Jessie Willcox Smith than with that of her fine art contemporaries — including Henri Matisse. Smith and her contemporaries’ achievements are apparent when we divorce the concept of artistic success from the mythic notions of modernist individual genius espoused by mid–century art critics.

We may accurately state: “the emergence of illustration as a form of expression thoroughly complicated the nature and significance of aesthetic experience.”65 Illustration accomplished the impossible, bringing the gallery to the printed page, and addressing every day issues of femininity, equal rights, and modernization. When we seek to enrich the modernist narrative with outsiders, commu-

Women Artists: Transforming Community 1880 – 1940

nicators, and idealists— illustration history is the natural place to look. In the Golden Age of Illustration, women were very successful and were well–known artists. Art historians have struck them from the narrative because of twentieth century biases which favor the avant garde (fine arts) and the graphic (design). Conflated exclusively with mass media, this false story of illustration refuses to engage with these images as art. When the story of illustration is told, it is filtered, male-centric and truncated at the “golden age.” The golden age of illustration is tied to an explosion in print media. It should not be confined to a story of the few artists whose commercial work overlapped enough with the fine arts. We do not need to invent new narratives for this era or exaggerate existing ones to correct the story. Rather it is time we started understanding and discussing illustration for what it is – an innovative and surprisingly inclusive medium.

17

Jessie Willcox Smith (American, 1863 - 1935) The Little Mother Goose, c. 1918 Monograph 6” x 8” Courtesy of the Providence Athenaum

Social and Aesthetic Modernism: Blanche Lazzell and the Provincetown Art Colony

18

SOCIAL AND AESTHETIC MODERNISM

Blanche Lazzell and the Provincetown Art Colony

Hannah Gadbois

With the advent of modernism came a rejection of the traditional and the conservative in favor of the radical and the progressive. As a product of this climate, art colonies emerged as places for liberal individuals to create transformative communities. Art colonies grew symbiotically with the Impressionist movement, a natural association because of the significance of nature to both.1 The growth and decline of art colonies neatly followed the path of modernism, a period bracketed by Impressionism and post-war Abstract Expressionism and Minimalism. These groups were an alternative to formal art societies and offered a place for female artists to congregate and flourish artistically. This was an important development for women artists who had historically been excluded from entering the professional art world. Many female artists joined art colonies that emerged during the early twentieth century Massachusetts. This includes the well-known Provincetown Printers.

The Provincetown Printers was a group of artists who attempted to elevate printmaking to a fine art. They were associated with an avant–garde movement who wished to create an American modernist aesthetic. This group included female artists such as Ada Gilmore, Agnes Weinrich, and Blanche Lazzell. Many, like Lazzell, resided in the town for most of their lives, where their participation in the community allowed for their own and for Provincetown’s growth. The mutually beneficial relationship between Lazzell and the seaside art colony illuminates the advantages of working in an art colony as a woman during the early twentieth century.

Provincetown was an especially revolutionary place because of its support for progressive cultural, political, and social values. When many art colonies began to decline immediately after World War II, Provincetown managed to evolve and maintain an important role in the art world. Art colonies, like many other pre–World War I modernist communities, were typically created by and for men.

However, they grew out of the European avant-garde because colony members were receptive to the new modern aesthetic. Provincetown artist organizations, and specifically the Provincetown Printers, incorporated many avant–garde principles (political as well as aesthetic) into their informal charters.

The town was particularly receptive toward women artists, designers, and crafters—and their feminine collectives and organizations.

The birth of modernist art, and subsequently art colonies, commenced with the industrial revolution that began around the turn of the nineteenth century. With the Industrial Revolution came the replacement of, “craft methods with much more mechanized methods of production.”2 The alterations in production subsequently brought about a change in the “organization of work into larger and more specialized units, the more rigorous and pervasive management of labor, and the growth of markets.”3 Changes in class and wealth accompanied the radical transformation of the landscape. Some individuals benefitted from the economic growth while others had to transition from independent craftspeople to dependent wage earners.4 Modern art is partially a reaction to the continual process of transformation introduced by the Industrial Revolution: changes to the natural landscape, to the economic status of workers, and to the individual’s place in society. Many viewed these developments as leading toward a certain end—a notion consistent with Westerners’ conception of time as progressive, linear, and irreversible.5 Some artists found that within this rapidly changing world, “established

Women Artists: Transforming Community 1880 – 1940

Claude Monet (French, 1840 - 1926) Waterlilies (Nymphéas), 1916–19 Oil on canvas, 60 in × 77 in Musée Marmottan Monet, Paris Gift of Michel Monet, 1966

19

Camille Pissarro (French 1831 - 1903) Fox Hill, Upper Norwood, 1870 Oil on canvas, 13.9 in × 18.7 in National Gallery

approaches to painting could not adequately address the responses of people living under the conditions of modernity.”6 The emergence of late nineteenth century art colonies was a complex reaction to this transition.

Some Impressionists looked towards the idyllic, pre-modern countryside as a new way to reflect the speed and transitory nature of urban life.7 When Monet painted water-lilies, it was not a rejection of urbanization but instead an attempt to capture the fleeting light and movement that made up modern life.8 Naturally, this complemented the idea of art colonies as communities whose members worked outdoors and explored the rural landscape for inspiration. Moreover, colony residents would not have the many expenses of life in the city. This practice, however, never diminished the importance of cities in the art world. Many art colony members were summer residents and spent the rest of the year in their studios in local metropolitan centers. Artists returned to the population-dense cities in order to exhibit at established art galleries and to make connections at popular institutions. Art colonies, on the other hand, served as centers for painting, community, and for members’ exhibitions.9 The development of art colonies also parallels that of modernism. Believing that traditional methods of art making no longer fit into the fast-paced world, many believed that, “the artist should take a fresh approach to the real world, relying on his own senses rather than learned concepts that had dominated traditional art.”10 Art colonies often arose from the newly founded informal schools that were quite distinct from formal education institutions in urban centers. In an essay on Camille Pissarro, T.J. Clark expands on the complexity of being a modern artist, noting that “painting for [the artist] had been dialectical, a dance of the singular and orderly, of freedom and harmony, of uniqueness and interdependence.”11 Modernity inspired a constant evolution and transformation, a constant rejection of the past and move towards the future.12 Art colonies reflected this complex relationship to transformation. As artists rejected traditional institutions, they created new, progressive organizations in the countryside.

The rise of American art colonies began when American artists returned to the United States after studying in Europe, “and were looking for picturesque country locations to capture the essence of the American people and the American landscape and the American past.”13 The historic architecture and communities of New England inspired many artists. Some of the most famous local communities include Shinnecock on New York’s Long Island, Rocky Neck in Gloucester on the northern shore of Massachusetts, and several near Provincetown in southern New England. These locations were not just picturesque; they also served as meeting points for artists to share information outside of the

Monet’s painting evokes the momentary and the transient, as evidenced in the changing conditions of light. Pissarro’s brushwork reflects the dance between the landscape and the built environment.

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Social and Aesthetic Modernism: Blanche Lazzell and the Provincetown Art Colony

rigorous boundaries of Academe and professional artists’ associations.

Nonetheless, Provincetown remained one of the most famous of these centers. Provincetown, at the tip of Cape Cod, was a historic fishing village, largely populated by Portuguese fishermen.14 The area began its transition to an art colony when Charles Hawthorne established the Cape Cod School of Art in 1899.15 With this, Provincetown became a popular destination for young artists seeking a less formal education. According to Deborah Forman, “…it wasn’t long before Provincetown became a destination. Other creative people followed the artists’ route to the far end of the Cape. Writers, journalists, Greenwich Village bohemians, and political activists came to join their friends. Ideas swirled like paint on a canvas.”16 Education was an intrinsic aspect of art colonies. Studio instructors frequently modeled their classes after their European teachers. In particular, they included what they had learned about plein-air painting and the importance of community. For example, Hawthorne had studied in Holland in 1898, the year before he opened his school in Provincetown. E. Ambrose Webster studied in Paris before establishing his Summer School of Painting in the same location.17 Although both Provincetown educational centers were strongly rooted in the European aesthetic tradition—with its focus on stylistic and formal innovation—they aligned themselves with traditional American aesthetic and social norms. The Provincetown art colony began to truly distinguish itself, in particular, in its treatment of women.

Initially, art colonies were a male preserve, as insular as most art institutions and societies in the early 1900s.18 However, that began to change when leading artists like William Merritt Chase began to admit female students into their art colonies. This encouraged artists such as Charles Hawthorne, an assistant to Chase at Shinnecock, to accept women at the colony.19 Participation in art colonies was very important for young female artists. It allowed them to navigate the professional art world and to experience a camaraderie they could not find in more formal art settings. Additionally, male students often treated female students as their equals, thus allowing women artists to benefit from the support and friendship they found in the clubs.20 However, although there was support for female art students in art colonies, very few professional women could serve as mentors for female art students.21 Many critics argued that women lacked the “independence of mind and the autonomous will to be fully professional.”22 Even if women could successfully graduate from art school, critics still believed their gender inherently barred them from becoming successful professional artists. However, women still found ways to enter the field. In the nineteenth century, many believed amateur artistic accomplishment reflected female refinement. Thus, women studied art and culture as an expression of their femininity (this was part of their duty since women were seen as the “refiners” and “moral guardians” of family life).23 Over time, women could use this societal norm as an “excuse” to pursue more professional artistic training. By World War I, women “were no longer considered dilettantes but professionals with the brains and the ability to indulge”24 their artistic pursuits.

By this time, many female artists lived and worked in Provincetown, especially a number of innovative female printmakers.25 These women were often unmarried and, like Ethel Mars and Maud Squire Hunt, may have been homosexual.26 Provincetown’s geographic location allowed its inhabitants to bypass the strict social regulations of the cities. The town was “a place where artists could live on little money and savor the simple satisfactions of stunning natural beauty, abundant bounty from the ocean, stimulating company, and the creative freedom to devote concentrated time to painting. The light was irradiated with refractions off the water, bouncing off the glooming white clapboards of houses.”27 Furthermore, Provincetown at “the tip of the Cape became ‘one of Nature’s laboratories in which creative minds and artistic souls can work,’ and thereby, a haven for artists of every kind, who ‘constitute a little world by themselves’ where imagination has full play.”28 This freedom appealed to all artists, including the Provincetown Printmakers. Additionally, the informal networks established by printmakers in these art colonies allowed female professional printmakers to flourish. This is not surprising given that only four of the

E. Ambrose Webster Summer School of Painting Art Students - Summer 1931 from E. Ambrose Webster, Early Modernist Painter catalog

Women Artists: Transforming Community 1880 – 1940

fifty art schools in New York City taught printmaking. Thus, artists who wished to learn etching, lithography, wood engraving, or woodblock printmaking did so in small, unofficial groups.29 This democratic practice was useful for female artists. They did not have to compete for spaces in official institutions or professional societies. In Provincetown, artists could escape the conventions that govern life in the urban centers. That is, its residents were free from gendered social restrictions that framed everyday life. Furthermore, the act of teaching one another and practicing together naturally forged a sense of community.

In 1915, five women and one man founded the Provincetown Printers.30 They initiated this group so they could exhibit and sell their prints—and support each other. To heighten their status in the United States, women printmakers needed to exhibit their work in order to become more widely respected as art-makers. Nonetheless, the professional female artist had to conform to conventional feminine norms. For some, this included deferring to a spouse as the primary artistic creator (as in the case of Grace Albee, a printmaker included in this catalog). Other women artists and printmakers did not forsake traditional “feminine” crafts. Blanche Lazzell traveled to the Byrdcliffe Arts and Crafts colony to learn ceramics. She was also an accomplished weaver and featured her textiles alongside her well-known white-line woodcuts. Both printmaking and weaving require an enormous attention to detail and a precision that affirms the skill of the artist. Other Provincetown printmakers also worked in multiple media as they strove to become professional self-supporting artists. More specifically, the artists of the Provincetown Printers chose a medium in which they could innovate and explore.

As Impressionism, Post-impressionism, Fauvism and other early modernisms faded in popularity, many artists moved permanently to the urban centers, abandoning the art colonies year-round.

Like early twentieth century artists such as painter John Sloan and writer Jack Reed, many believed that they had to be urban and bohemian. Of course, this is only a narrow view of modernist history.

Urban bohemian centers were often less inclusive than the informal communities of art colonies to which women had belonged. Clement Greenberg’s mid-twentieth century art criticism in particular reframed the modernist art world. His celebration of the individual artist and a muscular aesthetic formalism virtually erased the advances of early modernist women in the art historical consciousness.

The varied media, appreciation of the commercial, and the rural art colonies of early 20th century modernism began to seem out of place. Critics celebrated the singular male artist who lived alone and gave himself over to a life of art making but regarded the same behavior in women as selfish and unladylike.31 Art colonies also declined in popularity as the teaching styles and schools they grew out of became outdated, with curricula that supported conservative rather than avant–garde ideals.32 However, the ostensibly antiquated ideology of certain educators did not force the closure of all art colonies. Groups were often tied together based on professional and social compatibility, not aesthetic homogeneity.33 Therefore, those that maintained interesting and innovative social activities could maintain their place in the art world. Provincetown is a key example of one such successful art colony. The town would attract the artist and educator Hans Hofmann, sustaining its relevancy and connection to the larger art world.34 Hofmann, an essential figure in Abstract Expressionism and the teacher of Lee Krasner, Jackson Pollock, and Allan Kaprow, founded a well-known school in Provincetown.35 This institution would reinforce the town’s status as an art colony by drawing young educationally motivated artists to the area. Artists like Blanche Lazzell of the Provincetown Printers would continue to participate in the colony. She attended classes taught by Hofmann and made artworks inspired by him.36 Lazzell’s life and art typifies the forgotten history of the progressive New England colony. She is one of the many modernist women artists who were widely respected in life and almost entirely forgotten after death. Born in Maidsville, West Virginia in 1878, 37 Lazzell joined the art community and spent most of her life traveling between New York, Paris, and Provincetown. Community was very important to Lazzell and she spent her entire working life studying and creating with a variety of artists. These extensive educational experiences allowed Lazzell to innovate in her chosen medium, woodblock printing. Eventually, she became a respected and influential artist. Although excluded from

21

Postcard, early 20th century Provincetown, MA

Hans Hofmann (American 1880 - 1966) Provincetown House, 1940 Oil on paper, 24 in × 30 in

Social and Aesthetic Modernism: Blanche Lazzell and the Provincetown Art Colony

22

“When we moderns paint a realistic object we get beneath the subject and give you the very spiritual substance of it.”

Blanche Lazzell

Blanche Lazzell (American, 1878 - 1956) Two Boats on the Beach, ca. 1915 Woodblock 10” x 14.5” Courtesy of the Julie Heller Gallery, Provincetown, Massachusetts

Women Artists: Transforming Community 1880 – 1940

the pantheon of “great artists,” Lazzell truly epitomized the great modernist artist in her attention to form, process, and an avant-garde abstract aesthetic.

Blanche Lazzell was a lifelong learner and worked with many of the prominent educators of the early 1900s. Her education as a professional artist began in 1907-1908 when she worked with William Merritt Chase at the Art Students League in New York.38 Female American artists had the opportunity to study in art schools before most European women (other than at the Académie Julian in Paris).

This was because American schools were not government funded and required the surplus income that female art students could provide.39 Nevertheless, many male professional artists and art educators worried that this might deter respectable male students from applying. However, the overwhelming number of female applicants represented a financial opportunity for the schools and a public relations nightmare if they were rejected.40 European schools began to follow suit. Thus, European and American countries soon became accustomed to women professional artists.

In New York, Lazzell made the connections that facilitated her travel to Paris in 1912–1913 where she took studio classes at the Académie Julian and the Académie Moderne. Lazzell studied with artists Ethel Mars, Maud Hunt Squire, Helen Hyde, Anne Goldthwaite, and Florence Upton.41 In Paris, she saw the works of Cezanne and subsequently adapted his spatial geometry for her own work.42 After her time in Europe, Lazzell returned to Provincetown where she continued her education with Charles W. Hawthorne and E. Ambrose Webster at the Cape Cod School of Art.43 During the winters of 1916 and 1917, she went to New York to work with Homer Boss and William E. Schumacher. Though Schumacher developed a color theory based on his analysis of Post-Impressionist painters such as George Seurat,44 Lazzell was more interested in Cubist aesthetics. She traveled back to Paris in 1923 to explore this interest and studied with Fernand Leger, Albert Gleizes, and André Lhote.45 Gleizes’ use of pattern, rhythm, and geometry to achieve harmony inspired the young artist. Peter Brookes, noted that Gleizes was, “not dogmatically attracted to refusal of all figurative imagery, but insisted that painting was first and foremost an organization of shapes and colors within a given space.”46 Before returning to Provincetown in 1925, Lazzell exhibited her art at the Exposition Internationale l’Art d’Aujuord’Hui in Paris. This exhibition, which included the works of artists Jean Arp, Fernand Léger, Joan Miró, Piet Mondrian, and Pablo Picasso, represented an enormous accomplishment.47 With her inclusion in this show, Lazzell was connected to artists who shared her interest in aesthetic modernism. Her creative journey parallels the path of aesthetic modernism. Lazzell combined Cubist shape and form with Post-Impressionist and Fauvist color. Indeed, her exploration and deep commitment to art communities in Europe and the United States showcased her determination to advance her learning and to forge connections with other artists. She traveled great distances to find communities that employed the stylistic advances in which she was interested.

Blanche Lazzell explored a variety of art forms but is most well known for her extensive work in white-line woodblock printmaking. The origin of this technique is commonly attributed to B.J.O. Nordfeldt, the only man among the founders of the Provincetown Printers. It is entirely possible, even likely, that the entire group worked as a team to innovate this new style of printing though credit has historically been given to Nordfeldt. The process was truly revolutionary because the artist could view the entire composition as it developed. Lazzell adapted the method: she simplified the subject matter, used flat planes, maintained hard-edge geometry, and saturated her colors through multiple pressings.48 Although the Provincetown white-line printing method simplified the process, woodblock printing was still tedious and required a great deal of effort and time, often taking an artist several months to finish an edition of prints.49 Lazzell’s practice of printing colors multiple times indicates an exceptional attention to detail. With multiple pressings, she could employ expressive Fauvist colors that were evocative of the essence of a scene. Lazzell’s trademark color palette included deep reds, bright blues, pink, and purple.50 Over the course of the 1910s, however, her work grew increasingly angular and Cubist-like51 as Lazzell focused less on color and more on geometry. Although influenced by Gleizes’s conceptual approach to art, she began to depart from his rigid compositions.52 Lazzell moved on from landscapes and focused her attention on representational still-lifes with abstract geometric shapes in the background. Describing this work, Lazzell wrote, “When we moderns paint a realistic object we

23

Blanche Lazzell (American, 1878 - 1956) Untitled (Cubist Composition B), 1924 Gouache on Paper 8.25” x 7”

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Social and Aesthetic Modernism: Blanche Lazzell and the Provincetown Art Colony

get beneath the subject and give you the very spiritual substance of it.”53 Lazzell honed her expressionist color and hard geometries into more conceptually rigorous compositions but her goal remained the same: to bring out the essence of a scene.

Lazzell’s activity in art colonies had an impact that cannot be cataloged. Her participation in specific clubs, however, does attest to her role as an advocate for change. When she returned from Paris, Lazzell helped organize the New York Society of Women Artists with twenty-two other artists who rejected the conservative National Association of Women Artists. The National Association seemed to be more of a social club than the professional society that Lazzell and her modernist contemporaries believed it should be.54 In order to be taken seriously as an artist in this period, it was important for female artists to be seen as professionals rather than as amateur hobbyists. To participate in gallery shows, they had to emphasize their marketability as well as their technical skill. Nevertheless, women had to create “suitable female art” which would also enhance their professional status.

Lazzell also promoted an aesthetic modernism associated with the new European avant-garde.

Printers, especially those who employed abstraction, were often under-shown and under-sold. In 1926, she joined in a rebellion against the traditionalists who ran the Provincetown Arts Association because they judged modernist art too harshly. In 1927, this group of rebels mounted a separate exhibition for Modernist artists from the Provincetown art colony. This exhibition was held annually until 1936.55 Though the popularity of woodcuts faded, Lazzell continued making them throughout her life.

Her home remained a popular destination in Provincetown for tourists and local residents who wished to take her occasional art classes (on the art of the woodcut). Lazzell continued to create her art until her death in 1956.56 Throughout her life, she was a champion of abstract American art. Her battles were twofold: she worked to simultaneously build respect for the school of abstract American art and to strengthen informal creative communities as a source of American cultural strength. Furthermore, she stayed loyal to the Provincetown Art Colony and participated in its rich modern traditions until her death.

While many colonies closed, Provincetown still provided an educational center for veterans of the colony and new students alike. In describing Provincetown, Ronald Kuchta regarded it as “the origin of many paintings famous in the history of twentieth century American art, not only the place where they were painted, but where they were first exhibited, discussed, and sold.”57 The scenic and culturally rich area attracted important abstract expressionists such as Jack Tworkov and Robert Motherwell, who had studied under Hofmann and stayed in Provincetown long after his departure.58 They helped to keep Provincetown alive as an art colony until the founding of major galleries in 1957.

These galleries, as distinguished as those of New York City, secured the status of Provincetown as a leading art colony. This status continues even to this day.59 Provincetown is not just one of the longest-lasting art colonies, but also one of the most influential.

Jack Tworkov (American 1900 - 1982) T[amarind] L[ithograph] #7, 1978 Color Lithograph, 25 x 25 in Indianapolis Museum of Art

Women Artists: Transforming Community 1880 – 1940

25

Lazzell in Manhattan ca. 1908 This portrait of Lazzell was likely taken during her time at the Art Students League of New York, where she studied with William Merritt Chase.

Art communities, and specifically Provincetown’s, supported women in both the fine and “applied” arts (including the commercial). Though many of these communities were founded by men, their informality attracted female art students. In fact, the Provincetown art colony was the home to an exceptional community of women artists: the Provincetown Printers. In this group, women explored an underappreciated medium and developed professional artistic identities. Blanche Lazzell and other female artists, when faced with exclusion from respected art institutions, chose not to conform but to strike out and create their own societies. Although many of them have been forgotten and their art neglected, these women worked, studied, and exhibited alongside the most famous male artists of their time. Their erasure from history is not based on a lack of excellence or notoriety, but instead on a canonical art history that is still patriarchal and exclusionary.

WOMEN ARTISTS:

ACTIVISTS

Blanche Ames Ames (1878–1945) Sarah J. Eddy (1851–1945) Florence Kane (1895–1956)

ENTREPRENEURS

Frances (1854–1941) and Mary (1858–1941) Allen Gertrude Käsebier (1852–1934) Sarah Wyman Whitman (1842–1904)

EXPLORERS

Grace Albee (1890–1985) Eliza Draper Gardener (1871–1955) Frances (Fannie) Eliot Gifford (1844–1931) Emily Noyes Vanderpoel (1842–1939) Mabel May Woodward (1877–1945)

GROUNDBREAKERS

Margarete Koehler Bittkow (1887–1964) Jesse Wilcox Smith (1863–1935) Alice Barber Stephens (1858–1932)

INNOVATORS

Ada Gilmore (1883–1955) Blanche Lazzell (1878–1956) Lucy L’Engle (1889–1978) Ethel Mars (1876–1959) Maud Hunt Squire (1873–1954) Agnes Weinrich (1873–1946)

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Activists

ACTIVISTS Sarah J. Eddy, Florence Kane, and Blanche Ames Ames Researched by: Stephanie Cramer and Taylor Penning Edited by: Stephanie Cramer

Women’s struggle for equal rights affected educational, economic, social, and political institutions and values. The first wave of feminism, which began in 1848, stretched from the 19th century women who fought for women’s rights to the activists who successfully helped to establish women’s suffrage in the twentieth century. These activists formed leagues and associations that were forerunners to the social movements that led to women’s enfranchisement. The National American Woman’s Suffrage Society included Susan B. Anthony and her friend, artist Sarah J. Eddy.

Sarah J. Eddy was born in Boston, Massachusetts, in 1851 and spent most of her life in Rhode Island creating works of art—many of which she gave away for free. It was important to her to ignite a passion for the arts in everyone she met. Eddy was also fervently involved in numerous social causes. She was born into a family of means, one distinguished by a strong social and humanitarian conscience. Both Eddy and her family supported abolitionist groups, free religious thought, humane treatment of animals, expansive hands-on cultural education, and women’s rights and suffrage. In a letter of protest to Portsmouth officials regarding her tax assessment,1 Eddy stated that without the right to vote she was being taxed without representation—a rather remarkable stand in the period before women’s enfranchisement.

Sarah J. Eddy was also a professionally trained artist who created paintings, sculptures, and photographs to document significant moments in American history. She painted portraits of those individuals who helped to transform American politics, culture and values. The Smithsonian National Museum of American History houses Eddy’s well-known portrait of Susan B. Anthony. The painting depicts her dear friend at the age of eighty, seated with several children by her side. Over a three and half week period in 1901, Anthony visited Eddy’s home in Portsmouth, Rhode Island, to sit for the portrait study. The larger, final portrait is in Washington D.C at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History.

Eddy created Impressionist paintings, realistic sculptures, and countless Pictorialist photographs. The latter generally consisted of domestic scenes. In them, the artist often portrayed friends and neighbors and their daily activities. Her photographs served as studies for her paintings.

Florence Kane was born in New York City into a politically connected family (her father was Senator Henry B. Kane). At the age of three, she contracted spinal meningitis and lost her hearing and ability to speak. Eventually, Kane learned to communicate through her art. That is, she represented a role model—and was an activist—for those with a disability. She received formal training at the school of American Sculpture and the Art Students’ League. In 1927, the city of Aix-les-Bains selected her to design a monument to its native poet son, Alphonse Lamartine. Over the next three years, Kane exhibited several works that were highly praised by Parisian art critics. In 1932, the

Footnotes 1 “Sarah Eddy,” Portsmouth Historical Society, 2014. http://portsmouthhistorical.com/ sarah-eddy, Accessed February 01, 2016.

2 Heather Miller, “Blanche Ames Ames: Artist & Women’s Rights Activist, 1878-1969,” Harvard Square Library, 2012. http://www.harvardsquarelibrary.org/biographies/blancheames-ames/. Accessed March 4, 2016.

3 Heather Miller, Blanche Ames Ames.

4 Anne Biller Clark, My Dear Mrs. Ames: A Study of Suffragist Cartoonist Blanche Ames Ames, (New York: Peter Lang Publishing, 2001), 44 5 Heather Miller, Blanche Ames Ames.

6 Roy R. Behrens, “The Artistic and Scientific Collaboration of Blanche Ames Ames and Adelbert Ames II,” Leonardo, 31, no. 1 (1988): 47-54.

7 Anne Biller Clark. My Dear Mrs. Ames, 103.

8 Ibid, 215.

9 Heather Miller, Blanche Ames Ames.

Women Artists: Transforming Community 1880 – 1940

Salon des Artistes Français awarded her a bronze medal.

A friend wrote to her: “It’s very hard for a beginner (as you really are. . .) to receive a medal, and especially for a woman.” Kane returned to America just before World War II began, built a studio in Narragansett RI, and became an active member of the Providence Art Club.

While Eddy advocated for suffrage and Kane represented a role model for those with disabilities, Blanche Ames Ames (“Blanche”) fought for reproductive rights.

Blanche was born in Lowell, Massachusetts in 1878 to a progressive well-established family.2 (Her mother Blanche Butler Ames was a leading supporter of women’s suffrage and civil rights). Blanche was a very active child and was often found outdoors.3 She would later translate this love of nature into detailed botanical drawings and watercolors.

Like her mother, Blanche attended Smith College.4 She graduated in 1899 and a year later married Oakes Ames (no relation), a botany professor at Harvard.5 More importantly, she was also his professional collaborator. Blanche illustrated his critically acclaimed studies on orchids and other plant life.6 Blanche Ames Ames also employed her artistic skills to support woman’s suffrage. She became an art editor of the Woman’s Journal in 1915 and produced several images for the magazine.7 She used this commercial platform to shape the debate about women’s rights. For example, in cartoons such as “The Next Rung,” we see a very modern woman climb a ladder associated with equality and progress.8 Unlike other suffragist cartoons, this woman wears a loose appropriate “climbing” dress: a symbol of her newfound freedom.

According to Heather Miller: “In 1916, [Blanche] co-founded the Birth Control League of Massachusetts, a counterpart of the national group led by Margaret Sanger.”9 The Birth Control League of Massachusetts advocated for birth control, safer childbirth, and “enlightened” parenting. This organization, as well as its national counterpart, became what we know today as Planned Parenthood. Blanche’s artistic work, as in the study of a nude pregnant woman on a cross, exemplifies the interconnection between her politics and her art.

With the support of her husband and family, Blanche joined many national discussions and used her art to effect social change. Despite her high profile, Blanche often spoke about her children, her family, and her fellow suffragists rather than her art.

Nonetheless, she was a successful professional woman and mother—and represents a role model for social activists who are also working mothers.

In sum, Sarah J. Eddy, Florence Kane and Blanche Ames Ames served not only as inspiring role models for women artists, but for all activists interested in political and cultural change. In industry, education and politics, women have continuously proven themselves to be just as talented and innovative as their male counterparts; they have just done so a little more quietly. Despite the fact that nearly every book on art, history or civilization may not adequately discuss the role that women have played in our society, their contributions have undoubtedly shaped the modern world.

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Blanche Ames Ames (American 1878 -1969) The Next Rung, 1915 Ink on paper 23.5” x 17” Courtesy of the Smith College Sophia Smith Collection

30

Entrepreneurs

ENTREPRENEURS Frances and Mary Allen, Gertrude Käsebier, and Sarah Wyman Whitman Researched by: Kayla Angelini, Rea Bethel, Megan Pereen Edited by Gregory Goins and Hannah Gadbois

Beginning in the mid-nineteenth century, advertising and the demand for well-designed manufactured goods began to rise. Simultaneously, American and British middle class women (and those who aspired to be middle class) increasingly entered the work force.

Many creative women who wished to remain “respectable” chose to enter select fields in the arts—areas in which they could still fill their domestic responsibilities. Commercial photography and design represented two of the primary artistic professions chosen by women who wished to be self-sufficient.

The Allen Sisters of Deerfield, MA are examples of photographers who were able to bridge the worlds of commercial and fine art photography. Trained as teachers, these self-taught artists achieved financial and artistic status, thanks in large part to the publication of their photographs in the popular women’s magazines of the period. Along with Gertrude Käsebier, the Allens were featured on the 1901 cover of the Ladies Home Journal as among “The Foremost Women Photographers in America.” One resident of Deerfield, MA stated in the accompanying text: “They are doing splendidly in a business way and are making what, is for a living in Deerfield, a large income. Isn’t it nice.” The sisters earned thirty dollars from the reproduction of their five photos. This was quite remarkable given that an unskilled Deerfield worker received only $5.50 per week. As a critic of the time observed, “the prices they realize for their pictures should be an incentive to other women to follow in the same line of work. The field is a large one, and publishers are ever ready to pay good prices for pictures which they can use to advantage. . . there is no reason why women should not obtain more of the photographic work for newspapers and magazines than they do.” 1 Photographer Gertrude Käsebier represents another example of the workingwoman artist who supported herself and her family through her art. Käsebier, who was born to a Quaker family in Iowa and spent summers in Newport R.I., was a founder— along with Alfred Stieglitz—of the Photo-Secession. Though this “late-bloomer” attended art school when the youngest of her three children was nine, her masterful fine art photography was featured in the inaugural issue of Alfred Stieglitz’ Camera Work.

Like her counterparts in painting, illustration, and sculpture, Käsebier produced some conventional domestic images that reflected the cult of “true womanhood,” a cultural norm that idealized the woman as the family’s moral guardian—as the parent responsible for educating and transforming children into model citizens.

However, like the Allens, Käsebier altered this conventional subject matter into empowering feminine imagery. Even with her family portraits, which are reminiscent of Mary Cassatt’s mothers and children, Käsebier disrupts the traditional power relations associated with either mother and child or mother and husband. As noted by Carol Armstrong, “there was one area in which Käsebier departed from Cassatt, and from most other renderers of mothers and children: not only in her emphasis on the child’s independence—its squirming and straining away from the mother. . . but also in her focus on the child as the punctum of the family, rather than its nucleus.”2 That is,

Frances Allen (American 1853 - 1941) & Mary Allen (American 1858 -1941) Allen’s Houses, ca. 1900 Gelatin DOP print 6” X 8” Courtesy of the UMass Amherst Special Collections and Archives

Women Artists: Transforming Community 1880 – 1940

Käsebier gently questions turn of the century family ideals and visual norms. If we are to see how Käsebier or any female photographer subverts dominant power relations, contemporary viewers must look at breaks in the visual narrative and in unitary iconographic conventions. Indeed, I would agree with Julia Thomas in her conclusion about Victorian narrative painting: that it is in this “’open-endedness,’ in that look elsewhere… that suggests the possibility of other ways of seeing, and questions, even as it upholds” the pictorial, gender-bound character of American women’s photography during the Progressive era.3 Although she is considered a fine arts photographer, Käsebier’s work was popular with ordinary women (as evidenced by her inclusion in the Ladies Home Journal). She was also popular with other artists, despite her refusal to adhere to Stieglitz’ command that she stop doing commercial photography. We know that Käsebier kept an open studio and worked hard to mentor young women photographers and other artists. Indeed, Käsebier was a truly modern woman—a working artist who forged a professional career and laid the foundations for others to follow.

Sarah Wyman Whitman was the first professional woman artist regularly employed

by Boston publisher Houghton Mifflin. As Betty Smith notes, she gave the publisher’s “mass-produced book covers a sense of simple elegance.” Her designs reflect a restrained, indeed economical, modern sensibility—one in which negative space and geometric order anchor and animate a stylized floral ornament. According to graphic designer Sue Allen: Whitman “early developed her own lettering style, drawn with a quill pen—an artless-seeming ‘rustic’ form and a more formal, inscriptional style… One persistent and personal feature of her covers was her way of weaving the lettered titling words into the stems of the central plant.” 4 Whitman elevated the gendered world of flowers into a new design aesthetic. She developed a personalized style that transformed each book into a work of art. Her distinctive calligraphy ranges from a deliberately uneven and rustic sans serif to a formal expressive flourish. The covers also serve as a subtle advertisement for the writer’s narrative. For example, Whitman’s choice of the hearty New England Mayflower for the cover of Sarah Orne Jewett’s The Country of the Pointed Firs perfectly encapsulates Jewett’s stories about small-town Maine life. Whitman’s elegant, simple covers complement Jewett’s spare prose regarding “Yankee” life in Maine’s harsh, sparsely populated landscape. Yet, Whitman’s designs do not “illustrate” what lies between the covers. Rather, they serve to hail the potential reader with possibilities for what the text might hold.

Whitman served as a model for other professional women artists. Shortly before the opening of the first exhibition of Boston’s Society of Arts and Crafts, the journalist in the Springfield News wrote that “it is the fact that such women as Mrs. Whitman [and I would add Gertrude Käsebier and Mary and Frances Allen] are doing real, valuable work in the world today that gives intrinsic value to women’s work everywhere and stimulates and inspires others who must and do work.”5 And this sentiment is a critical one. The Springfield critic described Whitman as an artist who was doing “valuable remunerative” activities that could inspire others. She was a productive artist who transformed design—and the lives of ordinary women who could afford to buy her beautiful, mass-produced books.

In sum: Sarah Wyman Whitman, Gertrude Käsebier, and the Allen Sisters exemplify the professional modernist woman’s life story. A true entrepreneurial spirit distinguished their entry into the business world of art. Dismissed by mid-twentieth century art critics and historians because their work was commercial, these working-women valorized the traditional crafts (Whitman’s stained glass windows and book-cover designs) and activities (the Allens’ and Käsebier’s photos) that had been dismissed as decorative or feminine. The Allen Sisters, Sarah Wyman Whitman, and Gertrude Käsebier created modern art for a modern, industrializing age.

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Gertrude Käsebier (American 1852-1934) Mother and child, posed by Mrs. Hewitt and her daughter, 1899 Reproduction 14” x 17” Courtesy of the Library of Congress

Footnotes 1 Suzanne Flynt, The Allen Sisters: Pictorial Photographers, 1885-1920, (Deerfield MA: Pocumtuck Valley Memorial Association, 2002), 43.

2 Carol Armstrong, “From Clementina to Käsebier: The Photographic Attainment of the ‘Lady Amateur’,” October 91 (Winter 2000): 132.

3 Julia Thomas, Pictorial Victorians: The Inscription of Value in Word and Image (Athens: Ohio University Press, 2004), p. 228.

4 Sue Allen, The Book Cover Art of Sarah Wyman Whitman (Boston MA: Puritan Capital, 2012), 5.

5 Betty S. Smith, “Sarah Wyman Whitman: Brief Life of a Determined Artist, 1842-1904,” The Harvard Magazine. http://harvardmagazine.com/2008/01/sarah-wyman-whitman Accessed April 1, 2016.

32

Explorers

EXPLORERS Grace Albee, Mabel Woodward, Eliza Gardiner, Frances Elliot Gifford, Emily Vanderpoel Researched by James Ferguson, Kelsey Rabbitt Edited by Stephanie Cramer

During the “long” nineteenth century, many American artists traveled to Europe to study with innovative painters, printmakers and designers—those who had developed new techniques or had rejected Academic styles and subject matter. For example, Mable Woodward, Frances (or Fanny) Elliot Gifford, and Emily Vanderpoel went to France to study Impressionist art. Grace Albee, Eliza Gardiner and other printmakers enrolled in schools or participated in salons to learn wood engraving (which was no longer taught in American art programs). These artists returned to the United States and shared their newfound knowledge with students and other artists.

Printmaker Grace Albee, a prolific wood engraver, was born in Scituate, Rhode Island, to a family of gifted artists. Her grandfather, Simeon Cranston Arnold, was a poet whose illustrated books inspired the young girl. Albee studied painting at the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) where she met her husband, mural painter Percy F. Albee (with whom she had five sons). This working mother produced more than two hundred and fifty linocuts and wood engravings during a career that spanned nearly sixty years. Albee specifically went to Paris to learn wood engraving—a technique that the French “rediscovered.” For Albee, her expatriate years in Paris represented an extraordinary period of artistic growth. They “encapsulate the pivotal moment when she shifted away from working according to amateur artistic standards and turned towards a model of artistic professionalism.”1 After she returned from France, she traveled throughout the Northeast and eventually settled in Rhode Island. Albee became a National Academician in 1946, an honor that should have secured her a place in the pantheon of accomplished American artists. Despite Woodward represents a “turn of the this and other encomiums, this gifted printmaker has century” modern woman artist whose largely disappeared from the art historical record. Nonework merits recognition and acclaim. theless, hers is a story that can certainly inspire anyone interested in pursuing a professional, artistic career.

Eliza Draper Gardiner was one of the first artists to gain national recognition for her color woodblock prints. Born in Cranston, Rhode Island, she attended the Friends School (now the Moses Brown School) in Providence, Rhode Island. After her graduation, she taught art at her alma mater while she continued her studies at RISD, a college founded by women and dedicated to the study of visual arts and design. Like many of her female contemporaries, she also studied in Europe. Despite this impressive resume, she remains largely unknown. Gardiner was an active member in numerous artistic circles in New England and Pennsylvania. Throughout her career, she participated in many national and international exhibitions. Her life, in fact, encapsulated that of the “new” modern woman of the early twentieth-century. Like Albee’s engravings, Footnotes 1 Christina Weyl, “The Early Life of Grace Albee,” Gardiner’s prints deserve a place in the art historical discourse.

Print Quarterly 24: 2 (2007), 139.

Women Artists: Transforming Community 1880 – 1940

Mabel Woodward, born in Providence Rhode Island, was an oil and watercolor painter. The artist matriculated at RISD where she received the first scholarship ever offered for “ability, industry, and conduct.” She established a professional career soon after her graduation. Though Woodward received critical praise for her watercolors and pastel New England landscapes, the artist left the United States to expand her knowledge, learn new painting techniques, and acquire new experiences. She traveled to Europe to paint Roman ruins and to study the architecture of Paris and Amsterdam.

When she returned, Woodward became an instructor at RISD and the first woman President of the Providence Art Club. In sum, Woodward represents a “turn of the century” modern woman artist whose work merits recognition and acclaim. With her many accomplishments, both educationally and commercially, this artist’s life epitomizes that of the consummate modern professional artist.

Frances (Fanny) Eliot Gifford was a landscape painter who was professionally active during the late nineteenth century. Born in New Bedford, she traveled to New York to study art with Dr. Rimmer at the Cooper Institute. Later, she married Robert Swain Gifford and traveled extensively with him. Although we know very little about Gifford’s life, her work clearly exhibits her detailed observation of the flora and fauna of her native New England. Nonetheless, her European travels also informed her work.

Gifford’s landscapes appear to have been influenced by works from the Barbizon School and painters of the Impressionist movement.

Emily Noyes Vanderpoel was born Emily Caroline Noyes in New York City to a well-to-do family. Although she did not formally matriculate in an art school, she studied painting with William Sartain and Robert Swain Gifford (husband of Fanny Elliot Gifford). Vanderpoel was primarily a watercolor painter, but also worked in oil. Her painting Ypres was displayed at the National Museum in Washington, D.C. Several of her works are in the collection of the Litchfield Historical Society. Vanderpoel’s books on art include American Lace and Lace-Makers and Color Problems: A Practical Manual for the Lay Student of Color. Vanderpoel was vice-president of the New York Watercolor Club and a member of the National Arts Club, the Municipal Art Society, and the Association of Women Painters and Sculptors.

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Frances [Fannie] Eliot Gifford (American 1844 –1931) Merganser Ducks, 1888 Oil on canvas 42” x 20” Courtesy of the New Bedford Whaling Museum

34

Groundbreakers

GROUNDBREAKERS Margarete Koehler Bittkow, Alice Barber Stephens, and Jessie Willcox Smith Researched by: Gregory Goins and Caroline Stjarnborg Edited by: Hannah Gadbois

Early women Modernists bravely entered the world of art and left behind a measureable and important legacy. Not only were they pioneers of women’s art, they set precedents for both genders. Taking advantage of increased opportunities in education, many female artists transformed what they learned into lucrative careers. Because of the tumultuous changes in the print industry—and the growing demand for illustrated texts—women became illustrators, engravers, and photographers. By the end of the nineteenth century, commercial illustration represented an important avenue for women to become professional artists. Alice Barber Stephens and Jessie Willcox Smith are two of the most significant of these women artists.

Beginning as a woodblock printer, Philadelphia-based Alice Barber Stephens built a successful illustration career. As a mature artist, she had a national following, which was unprecedented for a woman at the turn of the twentieth century.1 Born July 1, 1858, near Salem, New Jersey, Stephens grew up in a second generation English Quaker Family.2 She demonstrated an early interest in the arts and, when her family relocated to Philadelphia, Stephens enrolled in the Philadelphia School of Design for Women.

Here, she learned wood engraving, a skill that proved to be financially lucrative. At the age of fifteen, Stephens became financially independent,3 placing her in the first generation of female artists who achieved measurable success as a professional illustrator.

Stephens soon established herself as a successful artist. Unlike many other professional women creators, she married and had a family—thus disproving the popular notion that women had to remain single to be successful. Indeed, Stephens worked for nearly half a century in the publishing industry.4 Not surprisingly, life experiences shaped her art. In her work, Stephens created modern women who slyly defied gendered conventions. For readers of Harper’s Bazaar and the Ladies Home Journal, Stephens created a virtual space that reached out to enfold the female reader.

If Stephens proved women could survive and succeed as illustrators, Jessie Willcox Smith proved they could thrive. Initially, Smith did not intend to become an illustrator. At sixteen, she was already studying to become a kindergarten teacher in Cincinnati. But when she discovered her artistic talents, she decided to change her career path.5 Smith enrolled in the Philadelphia School of Design for Women but left shortly after, believing the school wasn’t meeting her needs. Instead, she enrolled in the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts where she studied with Thomas Eakins, a renowned painter, sculptor, and photographer. Although their professional relationship was turbulent, Smith graduated in 1888 and was immediately hired by the advertising department of the Ladies’ Home Journal.

Smith labored in obscurity until 1902 when she was awarded a bronze medal at the Charleston Exposition. Later, she received many more awards for her work.6 During her lifetime, Smith was an immensely popular artist. When she started working for

Footnotes 1 Carolyn L. Kitch, The Girl on the Magazine Cover: The Origins of Visual Stereotypes in American Mass Media, (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2001), 17.

2 The National Cyclopaedia of American Biography Archives, 23 (San Francisco: James T. White & Company, 1933), 279.

3 Agnes Addison Gilchrist, “Stephens, Alice Barber,” In Notable American Women: 1607-1950, edited by Edward T. James, Janet Wilson James, and Paul S. Boyer. (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1971), 359–360.

4 Alice Barber Stephens Papers, Smithsonian Archive of American Art, Microfilm Reel 4152.

5 Edward D. Nudelman, Jessie Willcox Smith: A Bibliography, (Gretna, LA: Pelican Publications, 1989).

6 The National Cyclopaedia of American Biography Archives 26, 270.

7 Dorothy Grafly, “Smith, Jessie Willcox,” In Notable American Women: 1607-1950, edited by Edward T. James, Janet Wilson James, and Paul S. Boyer (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1971).

Good Housekeeping in 1918, she received $1,800 for each of her illustrated covers.7 With this achievement, Smith’s accomplishments suggested that women artists could not only compete with men, but could be even more successful.

Many other women were also important to the development of modern American design and the commercial arts. Among them were many European expatriates who fled to the United States during the 1930s and 1940s. One of these emigrating artists was Margarete Koehler Bittkow. Bittkow was born in the German farming town of Gross Lubars. Though she left her birthplace in her early twenties, its landscape had a lasting influence on her work. In 1919, Bittkow was admitted to the renowned, and highly selective Bauhaus. Though she chose weaving as her primary medium, Bittkow studied painting and graphic arts with Paul Klee and Lyonel Feininger. After graduation, she became the director of the Woven-Works department at the Weimar State Art Museum, marrying its director, Dr. William Koehler. With the rise of the Nazis to power—and their disavowal of the Bauhaus aesthetic and all Modern art as degenerate—Bittkow and her husband fled to the United States. They settled in Massachusetts where the artist had several shows, including a 1971 exhibition at the Busch Reisinger Museum in Cambridge. She found a place amongst the other Bauhaus transplants in the greater Massachusetts community. Bittkow’s art reflects her love of landscape and her intimate relationship with it. Although this quiet, self-reflective woman is not as well known as her peers, both her life and her art—like those of Alice Barber Stephens and Jessie Willcox Smith—encapsulate the history of modernism in Germany and the United States.

Gertrude Käsebier (American 1852-1934) Mother and child, posed by Mrs. Hewitt and her daughter, 1899 Reproduction 14” x 17” Courtesy of the Library of Congress

36

Innovators

INNOVATORS Blanche Lazzell, Ada Gilmore Chaffee, Lucy L’Engle, Agnes Weinrich, Maud Hunt Squire, Ethel Mars Researched by: Michael Cabral, Liana DePillo, and Hannah Gadbois Edited by: Gregory Goins

In 1915, Juliette Nichols, Maud Hunt Squire, Mildred McMillen, Ethel Mars, Ada Gilmore Chaffee, and B.J.O. Nordfeldt formed the Provincetown Printers.1 The group intended to elevate the status of printmaking to a fine art (to incorporate avant-garde technical and aesthetic advances into their artistic processes) and to create opportunities for the exhibition and sale of their prints. This was especially important for the five female members of the group given that women had to work particularly hard to promote their work. Although the female artists were trained as traditional fine artists, the Provincetown Printers worked in a medium in which they could innovate and explore new aesthetic principles.

Museums and other cultural institutions did not generally regard printmaking as a collectible “fine art.” Indeed, American universities rarely taught wood-engraving and even lithography (despite the numerous periodicals which needed illustrations for their stories).2 This represented an opportunity for the printmakers. The Provincetown Printers could “modernize” the medium without interference from professional organizaThe Provincetown Printers could modernize printmaking tions and educational institutions. They chose without interference from professional organizations this graphic art for a reason. Printmaking is a process-intensive art. It requires precision and educational institutions. and meticulous attention to detail. Thus, it is not coincidental that this group formed in a They chose this graphic art for a reason. summer colony known for its dedication to and support for the arts. This somewhat isolated and progressive town offered these women the opportunity to create art unencumbered by institutional fetters. Furthermore, the act of teaching one another and practicing together helped to create a community—one in which artists could support each other and any visitor who wished to participate in the Modernist cultural dialogue.

The Provincetown Printers produced work that transformed traditional Japanese woodblock printing techniques into a distinct American form called the white-line woodcut. This innovation, in effect, simplified the woodblock printing process. In the traditional Japanese technique, the artist carved parts of the image into separate blocks in order to apply a different color to each block. The Provincetown Printers engraved the entire image into a single block. A groove separated each section (which resulted in the “white-line” between colors) and the artists applied the chosen color to each section, which was printed sequentially from the same block and allowed to dry before the next color could be printed. This innovative process also improved registration because artists would not have to line up or “register” multiple blocks.

Blanche Lazzell is one of the most famous practitioners of the “white-line woodcut.”

Born in Maidsville, West Virginia in 1878,3 Lazzell joined the Provincetown Printers

Women Artists: Transforming Community 1880 – 1940

early in her career. She left West Virginia to study at the Arts Student League in New York with William Merritt Chase. Education and community were very important to Lazzell and she spent her entire working life studying and working with a variety of artists. Because of her extensive educational experience, she was an exceptional innovator in woodblock printing. Eventually, she became one of its leading advocates and a respected and influential artist in this and other media. She is, for example, highly regarded as a textile designer. Lazzell also participated in and helped found a variety of art societies. She advocated for women in the arts. She was especially interested in promoting American modernists and their work. Although she traveled widely, Lazzell spent a great deal of her working life in her home in Provincetown.

Ada Gilmore Chaffee was an influential artist who was active during the first part of the twentieth century. She was a painter, woodblock printmaker, engraver, and watercolorist. She was born in Kalamazoo, Michigan in 1883 and was an orphan by the age of 12. 416 After the deaths of her parents, she was sent to live with her aunt in Northern Ireland. During that time, Gilmore enrolled in her first art class at the Belfast School of Art.517 In 1900, she moved back to the United States and began attending the Chicago Institute of Art. In 1913, Ada Gilmore traveled to Paris where she and several other women studied with Ethel Mars.

During her time there, she began experimenting with white-line woodcuts and soon developed her signature color palette and style—flat, yet colorful depictions of everyday life. With the start of World War I, Gilmore and her colleagues moved back to the United States and settled in Provincetown, Massachusetts.

In 1923, Gilmore returned to France, where she met and married painter Oliver Chaffee. Chaffee introduced Gilmore to his peers who encouraged her to turn her interests from printmaking to other art forms.6 In 1928, she returned to the United States, but broke with the Provincetown Art Association. Instead, she focused on painting until her death in 1955.7 Lucy Brown L’Engle was born on September 26, 1889 to an affluent New York City family. Her father, Charles Stelle Brown was a real estate broker in Manhattan for over 50 years. Her mother, Lucy Barnes Brown, was the first U.S. Women’s Amateur Golf Champion in 1893. Lucy’s brother, former New York congressman Lathrop Brown, was Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s roommate in prep school and in college. They were such close friends that Lathrop was FDR’s best man at his wedding to Eleanor.

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Ada Gilmore Chaffee (American 1883-1955) Hanging Quilts to Dry, ca. 1917 White line woodblock print 9.5” x 10” Courtesy of the Julie Heller Gallery, Provincetown, Massachusetts

38

Innovators

Nevertheless, instead of following a life in “high society” she was a woman who possessed an independent mind and chose a life devoted to the study of art. Family records indicate that Lucy may have visited Provincetown as early as 1909 to study with Charles Webster Hawthorne at his Cape Cod School of Art. In 1911 she attended the Art Students League in New York City and studied with George Brandt Bridgman and others. In 1913, L’Engle continued her studies in Paris at the Académie Julian where she worked with the cubist painter, Albert Gleizes.

Agnes Weinrich was born in 1873 to a prosperous Iowan farm-owner family. Her wealthy familial connections would later allow her to network with members of the New York art world, including Peggy Guggenheim, the flamboyant art collector and patron.8 Weinrich studied in Paris, Chicago, Provincetown, and Berlin. She “apprenticed” with Cubist artist, Andre Lhote, who also taught Blanche Lazzell. Like Lazzell, Weinrich was an advocate of an avant-garde abstract aesthetic.9 This advocacy eventually led to the 1927 divide in the Provincetown Art Association—with the so-called conservatives separating from the aesthetic Modernists. Later in life, Weinrich would work closely with her brother-in-law, artist Karl Knaths.10 Although not well known today, Weinrich was an influential modernist and a member of the Provincetown art colony, which as noted earlier, was one of the most important early twentieth century art communities in the United States.

Maud Squire was born in Cincinnati, Ohio in 1873 to a musician father and an artist mother. Not surprisingly, they encouraged their daughter to devote her life to art.

Squire attended the Cincinnati Art Academy at the age of 21 and while there, met her lifelong partner, Ethel Mars. The two moved to New York where they worked as book illustrators and later relocated to Paris.11 Apart from their time in Provincetown during World War I, the couple remained in France for the rest of their lives. While in Massachusetts, Squire created her well-known woodblock prints of the Provincetown seaport.

These brought her and the Provincetown Printers some international recognition.

During the 1930s, Squire stopped creating art and lived with her partner until her death in 1954.12 Ethel Mars was born in Springfield, Illinois to a working-class family. Despite financial difficulties, Mars attended Cincinnati Art Academy at the age of 18. One of the very first works she completed was a portrait of her partner, Maud Squire, whom she met at the Academy. Together they traveled to New York and Paris. When World War I broke out, Mars and Squire returned to the United States and settled in Provincetown.13 During her time in Provincetown, Mars primarily created color woodblock prints although she had already secured international renown as a painter. Her prints, which display her masterful use of color and abstracted form, are quintessential examples of American modernist art. When she returned to Europe, Ethel Mars shifted her attention to works in graphite, watercolor, and colored pencil, often sketching people she met along the French Riviera. Five years after Maud Squire died, Ethel Mars passed away in the home they shared in Vence, France.14

Footnotes 1 Robert Bridges, “Blanche Lazzell and the Advancement of Modernism,” The Tides of Provincetown: Pivotal Years in America’s Oldest Continuous Art Colony, 1899-2011 (July 2011), 50.

2 Helen Langa, “American Women Printmakers: Adventurous Choices, Modernist Innovations,” in American Women Modernists: The Legacy of Robert Henri, 1910-1945, ed. Marian Wardle (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2005), 60.

3 Roberta Smith, “A Wizard of Form Who Found a Career in Color Woodcuts,” The New York Times (March 3, 2002).

4 Chris Petteys, Dictionary of Women Artists: An International Dictionary of Women Artists Born before 1900, (Boston, MA: G.K. Hall, 1985).

5 According to Karen Frankel, “In the summer of 1915, Ada Gilmore, who would become one of the founding members of the Provincetown Printers, produced a series of intimate watercolors on simple postcards.”

Karen Frankel, “Ada Gilmore’s Watercolors & the Birth of the Provincetown Print,” American Artist (July 2002): 58+.

6 Jules Heller and Nancy Heller, North American Women Artists of the Twentieth Century: A Biographical Dictionary.

7 Chris Petteys, Dictionary of Women Artists: An International Dictionary of Women Artists Born before 1900.

8 “Agnes Weinrich,” Julie Heller Gallery, accessed April 1, 2015, http://www.juliehellergallery.com/#!agnes-weinrich/c49u.

9 Ibid.

10 Ibid.

11 Ibid.

12 Ibid.

13 “Ethel Mars,” Julie Heller Gallery, http:// www.juliehellergallery.com/#!ethel-mars/ctd9.

Accessed April 1, 2015, 14 Ibid.

Agnes Weinrich (American 1873-1946) Untitled (Flowers in Vase), ca. 1920 Gouache on paper 14� x 10�

Courtesy of the Julie Heller Gallery, Provincetown, Massachusetts

Eliza Draper Gardiner (American 1871-1955) Feeding the Pigeons (color) ca. 1916 Color woodblock print 10” x 8” Courtesy of the Bert Gallery, Providence, Rhode Island

Eliza Draper Gardiner (American 1871-1955) Feeding the Pigeons (black & white), ca. 1916 Color woodblock print 10” x 8” Courtesy of the Bert Gallery, Providence, Rhode Island

42

Notes

NOTES 1. Rick Poynor, “The Missing Critical History of Illustration,” Print, (May 26, 2010). http:// www.printmag.com/article/the-forgotten-history-of-illustration/ (Accessed April 11, 2016).

Women Illustrators: The Forgotten Role of Illustration in Women’s Art History 23. Kery, Great Magazine Covers, 233.

pagne: University of Illinois Press, 1986), 23.

24. Kery, Great Magazine Covers, 235.

42. Benson, Counter Cultures, 23.

25. Kery, Great Magazine Covers, 154.

43. Kitch, Magazine Cover, 34.

26. Kery, Great Magazine Covers, 154.

44. Benson, Counter Cultures, 24.

3. Patricia Frantz Kery, Great Magazine Covers of the World (New York: Abbeville Press, 1984), 155.

27. Alice A Carter, The Red Rose Girls: An Uncommon Story of Art and Love (New York: H.N. Abrams, 2000), 16 – 17.

45. Benson, Counter Cultures, 25.

4. Kery, Great Magazine Covers, 105.

28. Carter, The Red Rose Girls, 17.

47. Benson, Counter Cultures, 26.

5. Linda Nochlin, “Why Have There Been No Great Female Artists?” ARTnews, 69 (January 1971): 22-39.

29. Bogart, Artists, Advertising, 22.

48. Kitch, Magazine Cover, 34.

30. Kery, Great Magazine Covers, 235.

6. Dorothy Grafly, “Smith, Jessie Willcox Sept. 8, 1863-May 3, 1935,” In Notable American Women: 1607-1950, edited by Edward T. James, Janet Wilson James, and Paul S. Boyer (Cambridge: Harvard University Press), 316.

31. Michele Helene Bogart, , Artists, Advertising, and the Borders of Art (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995), 1.

49. Alice Barber Stephens Papers, 1884 – 1986, Smithsonian Archive of American Art, Microfilm Reel 4152.

2. Michele Helene Bogart, Artists, Advertising, and the Borders of Art (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995), 15.

7. Clement Greenberg, “Avant-Garde and Kitsch” Partisan Review 6, no. 5 (Fall 1939): 34-49.

8. László Moholy-Nagy, Vision in Motion (Chicago: Theobald, 1947), 152.

9. Moholy-Nagy, Vision in Motion, 10.

10. Steven Heller, and Seymour Chwast, Illustration: A Visual History (New York: Abrams, 2008), 9.

11. Bogart, Artists, Advertising, 20.

12. Poynor “The Missing Critical History.”

13. Tibor J. Kalman, Tibor, J. Abbot Miller, and Karrie Jacobs. “Good History / Bad History.”

Print, (March/April 1991).

14. Bogart, Artists, Advertising, 20.

15. Kery, Great Magazine Covers, 233.

16. Kery, Great Magazine Covers, 57.

17. Bogart, Artists, Advertising, 12.

18. Richard Benson, The Printed Picture (New York: Museum of Modern Art, 2008), 22.

19. Julia Thomas, Pictorial Victorians: The Inscription of Values in Word and Image (Athens: Ohio University Press, 2004), 54.

20 Benson, The Printed Picture, 80.

21 Benson, The Printed Picture, 222.

22 Thomas, Pictorial Victorians, 22.

32. “The National Cyclopaedia of American Biography Archives Volume 23” (James T. White & Company, 1933), 279.

33. Agnes Addison Gilchrist, “Stephens, Alice Barber July 1, 1858-July 13, 1932”. In Notable American Women: 1607-1950, ed.

Edward T. James, Janet Wilson James, and Paul S. Boyer (Cambridge: Harvard University Press), 359–360.

46. Benson, Counter Cultures, 27.

50. Goodman, Women Illustrators, 18 51. Gilchrist, Notable American Women, 359–360.

52. F. B. Sheafer, “Alice Barber Stephens.” Brush and Pencil (September 1900): 24.

53. S. Michael Schnessel,. Jessie Willcox Smith (New York: Crowell, 1977), 9.

54. Schnessel, Jessie Willcox Smith, 19.

34. Gilchrist, Notable American Women, 359-360.

55. Schnessel, Jessie Willcox Smith, 28.

35. Kirsten N Swinth, Painting Professionals: Women Artists and the Development of a Professional Ideal in American Art, 1870-1920 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2001), 88.

56. Schnessel, Jessie Willcox Smith, 30.

36. Helen Goodman. “Women Illustrators of the Golden Age of American Illustration”. Woman’s Art Journal 8 (1897): 16.

37. The Plastic Club, “Alice Barber Stephens 1858–1932,” The Plastic Club. http://www. plasticclub.org/abstephens.html. (Accessed April 11, 2016).

38. Carolyn L. Kitch, The Girl on the Magazine Cover: The Origins of Visual Stereotypes in American Mass Media (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2001), 15.

39. Laura R Prieto. At Home in the Studio: The Professionalization of Women Artists in America.

(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2001), 151.

40. Kitch, Magazine Cover, 32.

41. Susan Porter Benson, Counter Cultures: Saleswomen, Managers, and Customers in American Department Stores, 1890-1940 , (Urbana-Cham-

57. Schnessel, Jessie Willcox Smith, 30.

58. Joanne A. Gedeon, “Biography for Jessie Willcox Smith.” Author Biographies, Harrisburg: The Pennsylvania State University. 2010 https:// secureapps.libraries.psu.edu/PACFTB/bios/ biography.cfm?AuthorID=7356. (Accessed April 11, 2016).

59. Schnessel, Jessie Willcox Smith, 22.

60. Goodman, Women Illustrators, 17.

61. Bogart, Artists, Advertising, 36.

62. Barbara MacIlvaine, “A History of The Plastic Club”, Philadelphia Art Club and Gallery. http:// www.plasticclub.org. (Accessed February 15, 2016).

63. Carter, The Red Rose Girls, 50.

64. MacIlvaine, “A History of The Plastic Club.”

65. Bogart, Artists, Advertising, 15.

Women Artists: Transforming Community 1880 – 1940

43

Social and Aesthetic Modernism: Blanche Lazzell and the Provincetown Art Colony 1. Brian H. Peterson, William H. Gerdts, and Sylvia Yount, “New Hope in the Impressionist Colonies” In Pennsylvania Impressionism (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2002), 71.

2. Merritt Roe Smith and Robert Martello, “Taking Stock of the Industrial Revolution in America” In Reconceptualizing the Industrial Revolution, ed. Jeff Horn, et al. (Cambridge: MIT Press, 2010), 169-170.

1970s (Syracuse: Everson Museum of Art, 1977), 25.

18. Kathleen D. McCarthy, Women’s Culture: American Philanthropy and Art, 1830-1930 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991), 88.

19. Ibid, 88.

arts-a-provincetown-adjunct-of-the-new-yorkschool.html?pagewanted=all. (Accessed February 16, 2016) 36. Seckler, “History of the Provincetown Art Colony,” 61.

37. Roberta Smith, “A Wizard of Form Who Found a Career in Color Woodcut.”

3. Ibid, 80.

20. Delia Gaze, Dictionary of Women Artists: J-Z (London: Fitzroy Dearborn Publishers, 1997), 140-141.

4. Ibid, 175-176.

21. Peterson, Gerdts, and Yount, “New Hope,” 82.

39. Kirsten Swinth, Painting Professionals, 26.

5. Hilde Heynen, “Architecture Facing Modernity,” In Architecture and Modernism (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1999), 10-11.

22. Kirsten Swinth, Painting Professionals: Women Artists & the Development of the Modern American Art, (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2001), 26.

40. Ibid, 26.

23. Ibid, 17-18.

42. Robert Bridges, “Blanche Lazzell and the Advancement of Modernism,” 50.

6. Jennifer L. Shaw, “French Landscape Painting and Modern Life,” In Paris and the Countryside: Modern Life in the Late 19th Century France (Portland: Portland Museum of Art, 2006), 65.

7. H.H. Arnason and Elizabeth C. Mansfield, “The Search for Truth: Early Photography, Realism, and Impressionism,” In History of Modern Art (Upper Saddle River: Pearson Education, Inc., 2013), 35.

8. National Gallery of Art. “The Beginnings of Impressionist Landscape,” http://www.nga.gov/ content/ngaweb/features/slideshows/the-beginnings-of-impressionist-landscape.html.

(Accessed March 1, 2016).

9. Peterson, Gerdts, and Yount, “New Hope,” 81.

10. Jennifer L. Shaw, “French Landscape Painting,” 64.

11. T.J Clark, Farewell to an Idea: Episodes from a History of Modernism (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1999), 108.

12. Hilde Heynen, “Architecture Facing Modernity,” 10.

13. Laura Wolff Scanlan, “High Thinking and Low Living: The Story of the Old Lyme Art Colony,” Humanities, (September/October 2007), http:// www.neh.gov/humanities/2007/septemberoctober/feature/high-thinking-and-low-living.

(Accessed February 16, 2016) 14. Steve Shipp, American Art Colonies, 18501930: A Historical Guide to America’s Original Art Colonies and their Artists (Westport: Greenwood Press, 1996), 83.

15. Peterson, Gerdts, and Yount, “New Hope,” 82.

16. Deborah Forman, Perspectives on the Provincetown Art Colony: 1899 to Mid-Century (Atglen: Schiffer Publishing Ltd, 2011), 25.

17. Dorothy Gees Seckler, “History of the Provincetown Art Colony,” In Provincetown Painters: 1890s to

24. Erica E. Hirshler, A Studio of Her Own: Women Artists in Boston – 1870-1940 (Boston: MFA Publications, 2001), 149.

25. Peterson, Gerdts, and Young, “A New Hope,” 82.

38. Ibid.

41. Roberta Smith, “A Wizard of Form Who Found a Career in Color Woodcuts.”

43. Ibid, 50.

44. Ibid, 50.

45. Ibid, 52.

26. Roberta Smith, “A Wizard of Form Who Found a Career in Color Woodcuts.” The New York Times, March 3, 2002.

46. Ibid, 53.

27. Christopher Busa, “PAAM: A Stellar Century of Cultivating Culture,” Provincetown Arts, (2014/2015) 41.

48. Ibid, 49-50.

28. Alexander J. Noelle, The Tides of Provincetown: Pivotal Years in America’s Oldest Continuous Art Colony, 1899-2011, (New Britain Museum of American Art), July 2011.

29. Helen Langa, “American Women Printmakers: Adventurous Choices, Modernist Innovations,” in American Women Modernists: The Legacy of Robert Henri, 1910-1945, ed. Marian Wardle (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2005), 60.

30. Robert Bridges, “Blanche Lazzell and the Advancement of Modernism,” The Tides of Provincetown: Pivotal Years in America’s Oldest Continuous Art Colony, 1899-2011, (New Britain Museum of American Art, July 2011), 50.

31. Langa, “American Women Printmakers,” 61-62.

32. Peterson, Gerdts, and Yount, “New Hope,” 87.

33. Ibid, 74-75.

34. Ibid, 87.

35. Ann Wilson Lloyd, “A Provincetown Adjunct of the New York School,” New York Times, July 19, 1998. http://www.nytimes.com/1998/07/19/arts/

47. Ibid, 53.

49. Chase, Jeanne Norman, “The making of a white-line print,” barenforum.org. http:// www.barenforum.org/encyclopedia/entries/000_10/000_10.html. (Accessed 2016).

50. Robert Bridges, “Blanche Lazzell and the Advancement of Modernism,” 50.

51. Ibid, 57.

52. Ibid, 50.

53. Ibid, 55.

54. Louise R. Noun, “Agnes Weinrich,” Women’s Art Journal 16, no. 2 (1995). http://www.jstor.org. libproxy.umassd.edu/stable/1358569. (Accessed January 31, 2016).

55. Louise R. Noun, “Agnes Weinrich.”

56. David Acton, “Blanche Lazzell: The Provincetown Print,” Provincetown Arts (Provincetown Art Association, 2004), 69.

57. Shipp, “American Art Colonies,” 83.

58. Seckler, “History of the Provincetown Art Colony,” 78.

59. Ibid, 80.

44

List of Works

LIST OF WORKS Grace Albee (American 1890-1985) Cyclamen, ca. 1932 Wood engraving 6.4” Courtesy of the Bert Gallery, Providence, Rhode Island Tomato & Worm (New York World Fair), ca. 1940 Wood engraving 6.5” x 5.5” Courtesy of the Bert Gallery, Providence, Rhode Island Pennsylvania image with carriage “Junked”, ca. 1932 Woodblock print 8” x 9.5” Courtesy of the Providence Art Club Frances Allen (American 1853 - 1941) & Mary Allen (American 1858 -1941) Allen’s Houses, ca. 1900 Gelatin DOP print 6” X 8” Courtesy of the UMass Amherst Special Collections and Archives Photographic Album, ca. 1900 Gelatin DOP prints 14” x 11.5” Courtesy of the UMass Amherst Special Collections and Archives Blanche Ames Ames (American 1878 -1969) Whorled Pogonia, ca. 1915 Watercolor on paper 17.25” x 10.375” Courtesy of the Smith College - Sophia Smith Collection The Next Rung, 1915 Ink on paper 23.5” x 17” Courtesy of the Smith College - Sophia Smith Collection Sketch of a Female Figure (pregnant) on a Crucifix, 1917 Pencil on tracing paper 20” x 16” Courtesy of the Smith College - Sophia Smith Collection Margarete Koehler Bittkow (American 1887-1964) Bright Sun Landscape, ca. 1940 Woodblock print 12” x 13.25” Courtesy of the Bert Gallery, Providence, Rhode Island Abstract Composition, ca. 1935 Woodblock print 11.75” x 9” Courtesy of the Bert Gallery, Providence, Rhode Island Western Landscape, ca. 1935 Woodblock print 9” x 14” Courtesy of the Bert Gallery, Providence, Rhode Island

Ada Gilmore Chaffee (American 1883-1955) Churchyard/ Farmyard (verso), ca. 1915 Woodblock (double-sided) 12” x 14” Courtesy of the Julie Heller Gallery, Provincetown, Massachusetts Hanging Quilts to Dry, ca. 1917 White line woodblock print 9.5” x 10” Courtesy of the Julie Heller Gallery, Provincetown, Massachusetts Oliver Chaffee (American 1881-1949) Portrait of Ada Gilmore Chaffee, ca. 1920 Watercolor 22” x 15” Courtesy of the Julie Heller Gallery, Provincetown, Massachussetts Sarah J. Eddy (American 1851-1945) Mother and Child, ca. 1900 Reproduction 8” x 12” Courtesy of the Carolyn Evans-Carbery Susan Brownell Anthony, ca. 1903 Reproduction 8” x 12” Courtesy of the Carolyn Evans-Carbery A Welcome Interruption, ca. 1896 Reproduction 8” x 12” Courtesy of the Carolyn Evans-Carbery Peggy, ca. 1920 Plaster sculpture 8” Courtesy of the Portsmouth Free Library Sonny, ca. 1921 Plaster sculpture 7.5” Courtesy of the Portsmouth Free Library Sheep in the Spring, ca. 1920 Oil on canvas 39” x 30” Courtesy of the Portsmouth Free Library Happy Cats and Their Care, 1938 Monograph 9.25” x 6.5” Courtesy of the Portsmouth Free Library Alexander and Some Other Cats, 1929 Monograph 10” x 7” Courtesy of the Portsmouth Free Library Baby in Sunbonnet, ca. 1920 Plaster cast 9.5” Courtesy of the Portsmouth Free Library Eliza Draper Gardiner (American 1871-1955) Feeding the Pigeons (color) ca. 1916 Color woodblock print 10” x 8” Courtesy of the Bert Gallery, Providence, Rhode Island

Feeding the Pigeons (black & white), ca. 1916 Color woodblock print 10” x 8” Courtesy of the Bert Gallery, Providence, Rhode Island Among the Poppies, ca. 1916 Color woodblock print 7” x 5” Courtesy of the Bert Gallery, Providence, Rhode Island Thirsty Little Brother, ca. 1916 Color woodblock print 9.5” x 8.5 “ Courtesy of the Bert Gallery, Providence, Rhode Island Landscape with mountain, ca. 1916 Color woodblock print 10” x 7.5” Courtesy of the Providence Art Club Landscape with cloud, ca. 1916 Color woodblock print 10” x 7.5” Courtesy of the Providence Art Club The Hour Glass, ca. 1916 Color woodblock print 8” x 8” Courtesy of the Blair Reichenberg On the Seawall, ca. 1916 Color woodblock print 11” x 9” Courtesy of the Blair Reichenberg View of the Providence Athenaeum, ca. 1935 Color woodblock print 6.5” x 5” Courtesy of the Providence Athenaeum Frances [Fannie] Eliot Gifford (American 1844 –1931) Fish & Hawk, ca. 1885 Ink on paper 11” x 14” Courtesy of the New Bedford Whaling Museum Merganser Ducks, 1888 Oil on canvas 42” x 20” Courtesy of the New Bedford Whaling Museum Two Stalks of Flowers, ca. 1885 Pencil on paper 9.5” x 7.5” Courtesy of the New Bedford Whaling Museum Florence Kane (American 1895-1956) Theodore Francis Green, ca. 1940 Bronze 13” Courtesy of the Providence Art Club African Head, ca. 1940 Bronze 12” Courtesy of the Providence Art Club John, ca. 1940 Marble 13” Courtesy of the Providence Art Club

Women Artists: Transforming Community 1880 – 1940

Lion Rendering, ca. 1940 Charcoal on paper 19” x 24” Courtesy of the Providence Art Club Lion Rendering, ca. 1940 Charcoal on paper 19” x 24” Courtesy of the Providence Art Club Gertrude Käsebier (American 1852-1934) Portrait of Cornelia Montgomery, 1900 Reproduction 20” x 24” Courtesy of the Library of Congress Alfred Stieglitz, 1902 Reproduction 20” x 24” Courtesy of the Library of Congress Mother and child, posed by Mrs. Hewitt and her daughter, 1899 Reproduction 14” x 17” Courtesy of the Library of Congress Blanche Lazzell (American 1878-1956) Advertisement for classes with Blanche Lazzell, ca.1915 White line woodblock print 5.5” x 7.5” Courtesy of the Julie Heller Gallery, Provincetown, Massachusetts

Advertisement for Kodak, 1904 Magazine advertisement 13” x 8.5” Anonymous In the Garden, ca. 1920 Postcard 5.5” x 3” Anonymous Five O’clock Tea, 1912 Postcard 5.5” x 3” Anonymous Heidi, 1922 Monograph 9.5” x 7” Courtesy of the Providence Athenaum The Little Mother Goose, ca. 1918 Monograph 6” x 8” Courtesy of the Providence Athenaum The Water Babies, 1916 Monograph 7.25” x 5” Courtesy of the Providence Athenaum Independent, Harper Weekly, 1918 Magazie 9.25” x 7” Courtesy of the Providence Athenaum

Two Boats on the Beach, ca. 1915 Woodblock 10” x 14.5” Courtesy of the Julie Heller Gallery, Provincetown, Massachusetts

Maud Squire (American 1873 - 1954) Woman Sewing, ca. 1915 Drypoint with watercolor additions 6.75” x 5” Courtesy of the Julie Heller Gallery, Provincetown, Massachusetts

Beach Combings, ca. 1931 Linoleum block print 13.75” x 12” Courtesy of the Julie Heller Gallery, Provincetown, Massachusetts

Tocque de, ca. 1912 Color etching 9” x 6.5” Courtesy of the Julie Heller Gallery, Provincetown, Massachusetts

Lucy L’Engle (American 1889-1978) Old Boats, ca. 1940 Lithograph 9.75” x 13.25” Courtesy of the Julie Heller Gallery, Provincetown, Massachusetts

Alice Barber Stephens (American 1858-1932) Ladies Home Journal, September 1897 Magazine 16” x 11.25” Anonymous

Ethel Mars (American 1876-1959) The Pianist, ca.1915 White line woodblock print 10” x 9” Courtesy of the Julie Heller Gallery, Provincetown, Massachusetts

The Old Peabody Pew, 1905 Monograph 8.75” x 6” Courtesy of the Claire T. Carney Library, University of Massachusetts Dartmouth

Woman Sewing, ca. 1915 Drypoint with watercolor additions 6.75” x 5” Courtesy of the Julie Heller Gallery, Provincetown, Massachusetts Woman with a Fan, 1904 White line woodblock print 5.75” x 4” Courtesy of the Julie Heller Gallery, Provincetown, Massachusetts Jessie Willcox Smith (American 1863-1935)

The Whole Family, 1908 Monograph 7.5” x 5.16” Courtesy of the Claire T. Carney Library, University of Massachusetts Dartmouth Ladies Home Journal, February 1897 Magazine 16” x 11.25” Anonymous Ladies Home Journal, June 1905 Magazine 16” x 11.25” Anonymous Ladies Home Journal, September 1897 Magazine 16” x 11.25”

45

Anonymous Emily Noyes Vanderpoel (American 1842-1939) Salt Marsh, ca. 1932 Oil on canvas 12.7” x 17.5” Courtesy of the New Bedford Whaling Museum Horseneck Beach, 1895 Watercolor on paper 9” x 12” Courtesy of the New Bedford Whaling Museum Agnes Weinrich (American 1873-1946) Untitled (Flowers in Vase), ca. 1920 Gouache on paper 14” x 10” Courtesy of the Julie Heller Gallery, Provincetown, Massachusetts Yellow Vase, ca. 1925 White line woodblock print 8” x 6” Courtesy of the Julie Heller Gallery, Provincetown, Massachusetts Abstract Tulip Forms, ca. 1930 Mixed media 18.5” x 16” Courtesy of the Julie Heller Gallery, Provincetown, Massachusetts Three Figures/Boat (verso), ca. 1915 Woodblock (double-sided) 6” x 5.25” Courtesy of the Julie Heller Gallery, Provincetown, Massachusetts Sarah Wyman Whitman (American 1842-1904) Such as they are: poems, 1893 Monograph 7” x 5.5” Courtesy of the Providence Athenaum Paul Patoff, 1887 Monograph 8” x 5.5” Courtesy of the Providence Athenaum The County of Pointed Firs, 1896 Monograph 7” x 4.5” Courtesy of the Providence Athenaum Mabel Woodward (American 1877-1945) Sheep Feeding in Trough, ca. 1920 Watercolor on paper 9” x 13” Courtesy of the Bert Gallery, Providence, Rhode Island Sheep on the Road, ca. 1920 Oil on board 10” x 13” Courtesy of the Bert Gallery, Providence, Rhode Island Portrait of a Lady, ca. 1920 Watercolor on paper 13.5” x 7.5” Courtesy of the Providence Art Club