This lecture will provide an overview of the art and artists associated with Provincetown, and highlights over 100 years of artistic activity. From Charles W. Hawthorne, E. Ambrose Webster, George Elmer Browne and others of the impressionist sensibility, to the modern movement and the work of Charles Demuth, Marsden Hartley, William and Marguerite Zorach, and Oliver Chaffee, the discussion will encompass a variety of contexts to understand the scope of Provincetown’s art colony and its diverse community; both world art history and interpersonal relationships will be discussed.

The second half of the lecture will focus on the art and artists who worked in the unique medium of the Provincetown Print or "white-line woodcut,” invented at the tip of the Cape in 1915; the process is a synthesis of techniques which produces a full color image from a single wood-block matrix. Participants will be grounded in the history of relief printmaking, going back to the earliest known relief impressions of c. 3000 BCE and the invention of paper c.100 CE, to the Japanese and European precursors to the white-line print. Works from PAAM’s permanent collection will be on hand to enrich each participant’s understanding and appreciation of this art form.