Blanche Lazzell

The art of the celebrated American modernist Blanche Lazzell (1878-1956) is distinguished by her lifetime of study and development in many media. She has enjoyed much attention in recent years as the true breadth and depth of her work has been revealed. Lazzell's passion, heart and inventiveness are nowhere more evident than in her masterful white line color woodcuts, which have caught the eye of museums and collectors alike. As colorful as these prints are, they owe their distilled subject, form and composition to the preparatory drawings, which came first. These preparatory drawings are where the artist's ideas were first given form and refined. They offer us the most intimate insight into the creative process, and as such, they are in many ways the founding documents of an artist's achievement, and certainly worthy of deeper study and appreciation.