Blanche Lazzell and Provincetown: Advancing American Modernism

In conjunction with the exhibition Blanche Lazzell: Becoming an American Modernist, organized by the Art Museum of West Virginia University and generously supported by Art Bridges. Blanche Lazzell: Becoming an American Modernist explores the pioneering artist’s lifelong pursuit of translating Modernism into an American art form and celebrates her largely unsung achievements in championing abstraction in the United States through painting and printmaking. Join us online for a presentation and Q+A session with PAAM’s CEO, Christine McCarthy and exhibition curator, Robert Bridges. They’ll discuss Lazzell’s work and her shift from European-derived modernism to her development of an American style before opening the virtual room up for questions. Robert Bridges currently serves as the curator of the Art Museum of West Virginia University, with collection holdings of over 4,000 works of art. Bridges has curated more than a dozen museum exhibitions since the museum’s opening in 2015. Exhibitions include Blanche Lazzell: Becoming an American Modernist, Paintings and Sculptures by Sally and Peter Saul, Shepard Fairey: Work Against the Clampdown, a solo exhibition by Nina Chanel Abney, Independent Vision: Self-Taught Artists from Appalachia, and Studio Window: The Prints of Grace Martin Taylor. From 2001 to 2015, he organized over 80 exhibits in the Mesaros Galleries at the College of Creative Arts. Among them are the international exhibition Ceramic Art from the Jingdezhen Ceramic Institute and two national exhibitions featuring the work of American Modernist Blanche Lazzell. Bridges has written several book chapters and magazine articles. He is a co-editor of the book Blanche Lazzell, The Life and Work of an American Modernist (2004) from WVU Press.