PROVINCETOWN, Lazzell & Loeb:Women on the Edge of

by James R. Bakker Constant from 1891 to 1893. Eva Hub- Loeb & Lazzell: Women on the Edge of Mod- bard instruted Blanche in . ernism is on view through February 17, lanche Lazzell was born in West It is not surprising that this initial tradi- 2002, at the Provincetown Art Association B Virginia on October 10, 1878. tional instruction in led her and Museum, 460 Commerical Street, Her initial education took place nearby at out of the hills to the big city where she Provincetown, Massachusetts, 02657, 508- West Virginia Wesleyan. Her first formal could see more art and seek more intense 487-1750. www.paam.org. The exhibition exposure to her art history was under the direction. She was a pupil of William Mer- is accompanied by a small catalogue. supervision of William J. Leonard at West ritt Chase at the Art Students League in A second exhibition, From Paris to Province- Virginia University with whom she also New York in 1907-08 and probably town: and the Color , studied drawing. Leonard was a graduate learned from Chase about Charles W. is also on view through April 29, 2002, at of the Academie Julian where he had stud- Hawthorne who had been Chase’s teaching the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, 465 ied with Jean Paul Laurens and Benjamin assistant at Shinnecock until Chase closed Huntington Avenue, Boston, Massachu- setts, 02115, 617-267-9300. RIGHT: Blanche Lazzell, The Pile Driver, 1945, white-line woodblock print on paper, 12 x 14, Napi and Helen Van Dereck. BELOW RIGHT: Blanche Lazzell, Dunes in Autumn, 1943, mixed media on paper, 53/8 x 81/4, Napi and Helen Van Dereck. LEFT: Dorothy Loeb, Tropics, 1926, o/c, 30 x 25, private collection.

his summer school. It was in 1899 that Hawthorne decided to open his own school in Provincetown. Lazzell’s studies at the Art Students League were interrupted by the untimely death of her father. Unwilling to sacrifice her hard studies, she decided to take the Grand Tour with a group of women dur- ing the summer of 1912. Undoubtedly in- spired by the art, architecture, and the sights she returned to Paris that fall to en- roll at the Academie Moderne under the di- rection of Charles Rosen and Charles Guerin with whom she would study at Fontenay-aux-Roses that following sum- mer of 1913. When she returned to West Virginia, confident of her abilities, she started her own art school. Lazzell traveled to Cape Cod in 1915 to study with Charles W. Hawthorne. She continued with her traditional study for two summers with Hawthorne before she drifted in to the modern camp of Oliver Chaffee. Here she encountered many of the friends she had met in Paris including Ethel Mars and Maude Squire. Fascinated by what she discovered in Provincetown,

American Art Review Vol. XIV No. 1 2002 146 Lazzell became a regular summer visitor to the town. She first exhibited at the Pro- vincetown Art Association in 1916. Over the next four decades until her death in 1956 she exhibited 123 works in the Asso- ciation’s exhibitions. Although there is much less informa- tion available about Dorothy Loeb, it is clear that a friendship and exchange of artistic information developed between the two artists during this time period. It is known that Loeb was born in 1887. But, it is unclear whether Dorothy and Blanche first met in Paris where Loeb studied with Fernand Leger and Louis Marconissa and Lazzell with Charles Guerin and David Rosen initially or whether they traveled together to Paris in 1923-24 and studied

147 Vol. XIV No. 1 2002 American Art Review with Leger together. Lazzell also studied with Andre L’Hote and . She painted her Nude in her 1924 classes with L’Hote. After Lazzell’s return from Paris, her three en- tries for exhibition at the Provincetown Art Association in 1925 were not block prints, instead there were two cubist studies and a painting, which shows her newfound inter- est and enthusiasm from her second Paris exposure to . Loeb’s initial studies took place at the Art Institute of Chicago where she exhibit- ed in 1915-17 and again in 1929. During this period a group of from the 1913 Armory Show traveled to Chicago. It is probable that this is where she first be- came influenced by Henri Matisse’s work that may have inspired her Nude, which she exhibited in the 1930 Modern Exhibition

American Art Review Vol. XIV No. 1 2002 148 RIGHT: Blanche Lazzell, Abstraction, 1924, mixed media on paper, 9 x 7, Napi and He- len Van Dereck. BELOW RIGHT: Dorothy Loeb, Bacchantes, 1927, monotype on paper, 14 x 18, private collection. LEFT: Dorothy Loeb, My Neighbor’s Barn, 1923, o/c, 20 x 24, Private Collection. BELOW LEFT: Dorothy Loeb, Nude, w/c on paper, 14 x 20, private collection. at the Provincetown Art Association. Fellow artist, Ross Moffett, also had at- tended classes at the Art Institute in 1911 until 1913. It is possible that she followed Moffett and his roommate, Henry Sutter, to attend the painting school founded by Hawthorne that had drawn Lazzell to Provincetown. Loeb’s first inclusion in the Provincetown Art Association exhibition records dates to 1923, when she exhibited My Neighbor’s Barn. Over her lifetime she exhibited forty-five works at the Province- town Art Association until 1948. The Provincetown Art Association and Museum was established in 1914 by a group of artists and townspeople to build a permanent collection of works by artists of the Outer Cape, and to exhibit art that would allow for unification within the community. After the outbreak of World War I, many artists found a safe haven and camaraderie at the tip of the Cape. The light and subject matter available inspired many of them to prolong their stay in this quaint fishing village. It would seem impossible in such a small community that Loeb and Moffett were not aware of each other’s monotype production. A comparison of their output, particularly in the early twenties supports this conjecture. An untitled monotype pre- sumably depicting Adam and Eve by Mof- fett in the collection of the National Museum of Art relates closely to those of Loeb, which have spiritual, if not religious overtones. Loeb’s monotypes have a certain lyrical quality that almost borders on the mystical side, as seen in her Bacchantes. The allegorical prints abound with creativity, fantasy and a fertile imagination. It seems that Loeb followed Ross’ in- terest in monotype rather than pursuing Blanche’s penchant for the white-line print. Although Lazzell experimented with monotype, she produced relatively few in comparison to Loeb’s prolific output. A newspaper review from the St. Augustine

149 Vol. XIV No. 1 2002 American Art Review LEFT: Blanche Lazzell, Cape Cod in Autumn, 1918-19, o/c, 17 x 193/4, private collection. BELOW LEFT: Blanche Lazzell, Johnson Street Cold Storage Wharf, 1942, mixed media on paper, 121/4 x 141/4, Napi and Helen Van Dereck. RIGHT: Blanche Lazzell, Nude, 1924, o/c, 353/4 x 251/2, Napi and Helen Van Dereck. FAR RIGHT: Dorothy Loeb, Abstraction, 1928, paper, 19 x 131/2, private collection. BELOW RIGHT: Blanche Lazzell, Provincetown Cottages, 1943, mixed media on paper, 5 x 8, Napi and Helen Van Dereck.

tional show for “the Moderns” of equal du- ration at the annual summer members’ show. This new venue was voted in at the annual meeting. Loeb and Lazzell would serve together on the committee in charge of the First Modernistic Exhibition held in July of 1927. Three other women—Lucy L’Engle, and Ellen Raven- scroft—joined them with seven men— Floyd Clymer, Edwin Dickinson, Charles Kaeselau, , William L’Engle, Tod Lindenmuth and Ross Moffett—to form the jury and hanging committee. The “modern” show continued for ten years and required a vote each year by the Trustees and was approved annually with some re- luctance by the old guard until the tradi- tionalists and the moderns merged into one combined summer show in 1937. It has been suggested that as the two groups evolved, the artists had more in common with each other than they had differences. Loeb was included as a prominent artist by Nancy W. Paine Smith in her 1927 Book About the Artists. Smith also de- voted an entire page to Lazzell stating, “Miss Blanche Lazzell, a dainty little lady, leaves a beautiful home in West Virginia, and lives here in a tiny studio on the end of a wharf, because she loves to paint and be- cause she loves the sea. She makes her stu- dio bloom with boxes of flowers, many and luxuriant. She is a block printer.” Loeb exhibited at the Worcester Muse- um of Art in the 1938 exhibition American Painting Today and Contemporary New Eng- land Painters and at the Institute of of Boston in 1939. Loeb and Lazzell were featured in a two person Works Pro- Record dated February 24, 1944 by Phil In 1926 Loeb and Lazzell came togeth- ject Administration Exhibition held at the Saw describes Lazzell’s monotypes as er for a common artistic cause. A petition Federal Art Gallery, 77 Newbury Street, “done more hastily but the result as well, of signed by thirty members of the Province- Boston in the spring of 1939. By the time years of careful preparation.” town Art Association demanded an addi- World War II disrupted the art community

American Art Review Vol. XIV No. 1 2002 150 once again, both artists were enjoying con- siderable success, Lazzell selling her white- line and Loeb marketing her monoprints. They continued to produce and exhibit numerous works in oil and watercolor with fewer financial rewards. It is ironic that the majority of their artistic output has been largely ignored and neglected until recent discoveries after their deaths have sparked new interest in their significant contribu- tions to Modernism. Women painters have always had an uphill battle to promote and exhibit their work as equals with their male counter- parts. If they married artists, they had to be careful not to overshadow their husbands’ careers. If they did not marry, as in the case of Blanche Lazzell and Dorothy Loeb, they had to be careful not to antagonize each other or offend the male hierarchy lest they a few others, it is only recently that histori- This Loeb and Lazzell exhibition attempts be deemed as Sunday lady painters and rel- ans have come to reconsider and rediscover to reexamine the creativity and individuality egated to show their work at Sunday teas. the contributions made by many of these of these two modern artists as painters and If they did not attain success within their forgotten female painters. focuses on a cross section of work created lifetime, women artists were destined for Museums and scholars are reevaluating between the two World Wars drawn from oblivion in the pages of American art histo- and mounting major exhibitions correcting local collections, most of which is being ex- ry. With the exception of Mary Cassatt and this oversight based on quality not gender. hibited to the public for the first time.

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