Blanche Lazzell’s ground-breaking work and life are the subject of the artist’s first solo exhibition in nearly two decades
By Sarah Gianelli
Blanche Lazzell ( 1878-1956) was a staunch nonconformist, not only when it came to her art-about which she wrote, “[it] will be my own or nothing” -but also the restrictive social norms surrounding her gender, ability and freedom to live the way she wished. She never married and made many trips to Europe, where exposure to the avant-garde shaped the evolution of her work.
One of the pioneers of modernism and abstraction in the United States, Lazzell is best known for her innovative woodblock prints but she was also a painter who explored post-impressionism, pointillism, cubism and abstraction. More than 60 paintings, prints and other works on paper are the subject of Blanche Lazzell: Becoming an American Modernist, on view at the Bruce Museum in Greenwich, Connecticut, through April 27. The comprehensive survey of Lazzell’s creative output spans the 1910s to the 1950s, providing a visual map of the artist’s trailblazing life and career. It is the first solo exhibition of the artist’s work in nearly 20 years.
Lazzell was born on a farm in West Virginia, the ninth of 10 children, into a devout Methodist family. At 15, she enrolled in West Virginia Conference Seminary. At some point prior she had become partially deaf but rather than perceive this as a handicap, she seemed to embrace that which set her apart, describing herself as “contrary and particular.”
In 1901, Lazzell enrolled at West Virginia University where she earned a degree in fine art. In 1907, she moved to New York and joined the Art Students League, where she studied with William Merritt Chase and alongside Georgia O’Keeffe. In the summer of 1912, Lazzell first traveled to Europe, visiting Spain, Italy, Germany, England and Belgium before finally settling in Paris’ Montparnasse district, the cultural and artistic heart of the modernist movement. She took classes at the Academie de la Grande Chaumiere, tbe Academie Delecluse and the Academie Julian, and attended lectures at the Louvre and visited avant-garde exhibitions that featured work by Japanese printmakers, impressionists, and post-impressionist painter Paul Cezanne. At the Salon d’Automne and Salon de la Section d’or, she was first introduced to cubism, which had an enduring impact on Lazzell’s approach to art. By January, she had enrolled at the experimental Academie Moderne, where she shifted her focus to the abstract, studying diligently under Charles Guerin. At the Moderne, Lazzell said she “felt at last in my element,” but diminishing funds and the impending onset of World War I forced a return to the U.S. in 1913. Soon she joined friends in the vibrant artists’ colony of Provincetown, Massachusetts, where she would establish a permanent studio in 1918.
Read the full story at American Fine Art Magazine!
Image:
Blanche Lazzell (American, 1878–1956), Shell, 1930. Oil on canvas, 16 3/16 x 20 in. Art Museum of West Virginia University Collection, c. Estate of Blanche Lazzell
