Village Road
Artist
Lazzell, Blanche
(American, 1878 - 1956)
Date1920
OriginUnited States of America
MediumOil on canvas
Dimensions20 1/2 × 17 in. (52.1 × 43.2 cm)
ClassificationsPainting
Credit LineGift of Carolyn K. and Richard F. Barry III
Object number2017.23
Label TextNettie Blanche Lazzell (American, 1878–1956)
Village Road
Oil on canvas, 1920
Gift of Carolyn K. and Richard F. Barry III
Blanche Lazzell was one of the earliest American women artists working in a modernist style. A prolific painter, print-maker, and designer, she became a pioneer in white-line woodcuts, for which she is best known. Abstraction and a decorative form of geometric cubism particularly suited her chosen medium. Flat planes of color were organized with an interplay of space, instead of perspective.
Born and raised in West Virginia, she studied fine art at West Virginia University, then for a brief time at the Art Student League with Kenyon Knox and William Merritt Chase. In 1912, she traveled to Europe and remained in Paris for an extended time. She became exposed to Fauvist color and technique, and developed her inclination for landscape art. She summered in the art community of Provincetown, MA, from 1915 on, which became a mecca for expatriate European artists escaping WWI, and she eventually moved there permanently.
Status
On view
Vick, Robert
Buttersworth, Thomas
ca. 1835
