Collection Spotlight: Blanche Lazzell’s white-line woodcut prints

Nestled in MAACM’s American Arts & Crafts Woodblocks exhibition are four white-line woodcut prints by Blanche Lazzell, new to the collection of the Two Red Roses Foundation. These newly acquired prints were added to the collection just in time for the opening of the exhibition in September and illustrate the breadth and depth of Lazzell’s long career.

During World War I artists living abroad were forced to return to the United States and many took refuge in the Cape Cod area of Provincetown, Massachusetts. One of these artists was Blanche Lazzell (1878-1956). Lazzell was an educated and well-traveled woman who brought cubism and abstraction to her art, especially with her white-line woodcut prints. The white-line woodcut print, invented in Provincetown, is the most popular art technique from the area and Lazzell is considered the most accomplished and innovative printmaker of the method. The four newly acquired pieces are perfect examples of this method. Using her surroundings as inspiration, such as a coal mining factory, a still life, a landscape, or a simple street, Lazzell’s woodblock prints are bold, colorful, abstract and cubistic. Between 1916 and her death in 1956 Lazzell made more than 138 woodblocks, a true testimony of her creative passion.

These beautiful white-line woodcut prints are displayed on the 3rd floor, with other works by Lazzell and the many other artists in the American Arts & Crafts Woodblocks exhibition.