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THE PROVINCETOWN PRINT by Bill Evaul
Pioneers of the PROVINCETOWN PRINT
By | Bill Evaul
The Provincetown Print, as it was first known, or white-line color woodcut, as it is called today, created an art world sensation for a brief period around its invention in 1915. The original group of six artists had been acquaintances in Paris and shared a love of wood block printmaking using both Oriental and European techniques. With the outbreak of World War I, they decided to return to American and the art colony of Provincetown and committed themselves to working together around their mutual love of woodcut printmaking. Juliette Nichols, Ethel Mars, Maude Squire, Ada Gilmore, Mildred McMillen and B.J.O. Nordfeldt were experimental by nature and encouraged each other’s progress. One day, Nordfeldt showed up with his entire design for a color woodcut on a single block. He had hinged the paper directly to the block with pins – a simple but effective registration method – and he painted and printed as many colors as he chose. This small act of invention revolutionized the world of woodblocks.
The others quickly adopted the technique and the group attracted many more artists, including, most notably, Blanche Lazzell. Todd Lindenmuth, Oliver Chaffee, Agnes Weinrich, Karl Knaths, Edith Lake Wilkinson, William Zorach and a few others who also recognized the possibilities. Together, with the original six, they formed a kind of artists’ co-operative called the Provincetown Printers and exhibited widely, both in their own Provincetown gallery and in traveling exhibitions and invitational museum shows nationwide. The group flourished for about ten years before fading from the scene. With a few notable exceptions, most of the artists turned their attention elsewhere. After all, oil painting was the predominant medium of the day for serious art and the tedious nature of painting and rubbing only resulted in a print – a work on paper – which the market valued much less in comparison to an oil painting on canvas.
Then, after more than fifty years of obscurity, another sensation was created through the re-discovery of the Provincetown Print. Mervin Jules and Nat Halper, a Provincetown artist and a Provincetown gallerist, discovered a cache of these prints and wisely invited the pre-eminent woodcut scholar, Janet Flint, of the Smithsonian National Museum of American Art to curate an exhibition. In 1983, the show opened in Provincetown and then traveled to Washington, D.C. and sparked a renewed interest. A brisk collectors’ market developed almost at the outset and auction and sales records for prime examples were broken annually until leveling off with prices in the high five figures with some Lazzells fetching in the low six figures. The demand spurred many dealers to scour the world for their eager clients. This resulted in some good scholarship and the re-discovery of many previously unknown artists who had produced beautiful work with the new medium.
What is it about the Provincetown Print that attracts attention like this? And, how did Nordfeldt come up with something really new in a medium which has been around for over five thousand years? The cooperative spirit of the original group played a crucial part and allowed Nordfeldt to take his creative leap. With the dominance of the carved grooves providing the characteristic white-line, and the unlimited palette of color with its luminosity and textural effects, the result is a wholly unique look. Not a painting nor a traditional editioned print, it immediately became known as a “Provincetown Print” in honor of its place of origin.
