Provincetown Printmakers
May 17June 12, 2024
May 17June 12, 2024
MAY 17 - JUNE 12, 2024
James KenyDuring World War I, a small coterie of artists, known as the Provincetown Printmakers, congregated in the small fishing town and burgeoning art colony of Provincetown situated at the tip of Cape Cod in Massachusetts. The group was primarily comprised of women but also including two well-known male artists, Gustave Baumann, and Bror Julius Olsson Nordfeldt. Some of the key women were Ada Gilmore Chaffee, Mabel Hewitt, Edna Hopkins, Blanche Lazzell, Ethel Mars, and her partner, Maud Squire. Many of these figures were originally from the Midwest and had been studying and exhibiting in Paris before the Great War prompted their departure from the continent. In Provincetown, they became well-known for their Post Impressionist works that were often characterized by vibrant colors, reductive forms, flattened picture planes, bold asymmetrical design, and, occasionally, Cubistic conflation of space and perspective. Here the white-line technique was perfected which no longer necessitated the use of several blocks to produce a print and contributed to the Modernist aesthetic.
Until the early 1980’s, these innovative modernists were largely relegated to the footnotes of art history despite the success they had achieved in the teens, 1920’s and early 1930’s. In 1983 Janet Flint of Washington D.C.’s National Museum of American Art organized a show of their largely forgotten work. Since then, their distinctive art has been featured in major museum exhibitions throughout the country.
A few prominent examples include the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston’s Blanche Lazzell and the ColorWoodcut: From Paris to Provincetown , which traveled to the Cleveland Museum of Art in 2002, and The Provincetown Printmakers, also featured at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, in 2023.
As a result of the urgent need to address the often unrecognized achievements of women artists, many museums have recently acquired extraordinary works by these avante-garde artists including the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Cleveland Museum of Art, National Gallery of Art, and Amon Carter Museum of Ft. Worth, Texas. Since the late 1980’s, Tim and I have been very interested in celebrating the contributions of these artists, especially the art of Edna Hopkins, Ethel Mars, and Maud Squire, who studied at the Art Academy of Cincinnati and had strong Ohio ties. In 2014, my daughter, Tara, and I co-curated an exhibition for Capital University’s Schumacher Gallery entitled The French Connection, Midwestern ModernistWomen(1900-1930)that addressed this subject. Over the years, Keny Galleries has been fortunate to place a number of these works in collections throughout the country including several museums.
I hope you can join us to experience the outstanding achievements of the Provincetown Printmakers.
JAMES M. KENYProvincetown, 1917 13 1/8” x 10 7/8” Idle Fleet, 1918 11” x 10” Private Collection
Summer Rain, 1926
9 3/8” x 11 1/8”
12 ¾” x 12 ¾”
Private Collection
c. 1920-23 9 7/8”x 10 ¾” Private Collection
10 7/8” x 7 ¼”
Private Collection
Private Collection
Apple tree Branch, c. 1907-08
10 7/8” x 7 ¼” Private Collection
Purple Daisy, c. 1907-09
11” x 7 ¼”
Private Collection
Hollyhocks, c. 1910-13
Daisies and Snapdragons, c. 1915
Watercolor on paper
8 ¼” x 7 ½”
Rocks and River, 1917
Boats and Water, 1918
9 ⅛” x 9 ⅛” Private Collection
1876-1956
1876-1956
Baiting Up (Baiting Up, Provincetown), c. 1917-18
9 ¾” x 12”
Private Collection
Sails and Gulls/Star Gazing, 1928
Two sided woodblock
13 3/4” x 12”