2 gosnold street provincetown, MA 02657 phone: (508) 487 2169 fax: (508) 487 6651

Blanche Lazzell (1878-1956) Four Boats Blanche Lazzell is know primarily for her involvement with the Provincetown art world where she first sojourned in the summer of 1915. She was a painter, printmaker, and rugmaker. After a brief period when she was influenced by Impressionism (originally having come to Provincetown to study with Charles Hawthorne), Lazzell developed a decorative, geometric and cubist style, perfectly suited to flowers and the houses, wharves and rooftops of Provincetown. Artists flocked to Provincetown during WWI, when the doors to Paris were closed, and Lazzell described the feel of the town in those times: "Creative Energy was the air we breathed. It was in this quaint setting that the Provincetown Print came into being." And it was in the creation of the Provincetown Print that Blanche Lazzell was to excel. She once explained: "Originality, Simplicity, Freedom of Expression, and above all Sincerity, with a clean cut block, are characteristics of a good wood block print." excepts from "Blanche Lazzell" by John Clarkson