Women and Creativity Conference

Born in Maidsville, West Virginia, Blanche Lazzell became a leading figure in color-woodblock printmaking in a geometric, Cubist influenced style. She is most associated with the art colony in Provincetown, Massachusetts where she belonged to the Provincetown Print Makers founded in 1915. Lazzell studied at West Virginia University and by 1905, had earned three university degrees, highly unusual for a woman of that time. In 1908, she entered the Art Students League in New York as a pupil .

During the conference, participants can view a major exhibition of the work of artist Blanche Lazzell. Entitled Blanche Lazzell: The Work of An American Modernist, the exhibit will be on view in the Laura and Paul Mesaros Galleries in the lobby of the Creative Arts Center. Lazzell (1878-1956) is remembered for making some of the first abstract prints and paintings in America. She was born in nearby Maidsville, West Virginia, graduated from West Virginia University with a degree in fine arts, and went on to study in New York and Paris with notable artists of her day. Her reputation is based on her role in the development of the innovative Provincetown white-line woodblock print and on the prints and paintings she made using the abstract vocabulary of cubism. Robert Bridges (curator of the West Virginia University Art Collection and the Mesaros Galleries) has selected work that spans the artist’s whole career and includes examples of her paintings, prints, drawings, and decorative work. The exhibit will be accompanied by a 300+ page, hardcover catalog.