biography of Blanche LAZZELL (1878-1956)

Birth place: Maidsville, WVA

Death place: Morgantown, WVA

Addresses: Morgantown, WVA; Provincetown, MA

Profession: Painter, graphic artist, teacher

Studied: WV Univ. (degree in drawing, painting and art history); ASL with Wm. Merritt Chase; at Acad. Moderne, Paris, with Charles Guerin, David Rosen; with Leger, Lhote, A. Gleizes in Paris, 1924-26; Homer Boss; Schumacher; Oliver Chaffee (woodcut techniques) in Provincetown; Charles Hawthorne and later Hans Hoffman, also in Provincetown.

Exhibited: S. Indp. A., 1917-23, 1925-27, 1936, 1938; Salons of Am., 1922, 1927; N.Y. Soc. Women A., 1925-1946; Provincetown AA, 1916-1946; WFNY1939; Am. NYWWA, 1925-46; Provincetown AA, 1916-46; WFNY, 1939; Color Pr. Soc., 1946; San F. AA, 1946; Lib. Cong., 1946; Phila. Pr. Cl., 1946, M. Diamond FA, NYC, 1982 (solo), 1984, 1985 (solo)

Member: NY Soc. Women A.; Am. Color Pr. Soc.; Provincetown AA; N.E.S. Contemp. A.; Wolfe AC; NAWPS; Provincetown Printers; Societé Anonyme.

Work: Detroit Inst. A.; RISD; PMA; Pub. Lib., Charlestown, W.Va.; W.Va. Univ. Lib.; mural, Court House, Morgantown, W.Va.; Skidmore Col.; State Normal Sch., Potsdam, NY.

Comments: Best known as an abstract printmaker in the "white line" method, she tied her life to the art colony at Provincetown. In 1926, after returning from study with the Parisian modernists, abstraction became her strength for the rest of her life. During the 1930s the WPA commissioned her to produce a set of prints of scenes around her family home in Morgantown, WV. She was the ninth of ten children, and Vernon Smith, one of her artist-friends, said she was "stone deaf."

Sources: WW53; WW47; Diamond, Thirty-Five American Modernists p.53