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June 28, 2008
 Blanche Lazzell white-line print
Supported by the local fishing community who rented them cheap studio space ($50 a year after WWI) and exchanged paintings for food in tough times, they represent a roster of some of the most important American artists of the past 100 years: Charles Hawthorne and Harry Hensche, founders of the Cape Cod School of Art at the turn of the century, Blanche Lazell, who came back from Europe in the 20’s to popularize the white-line woodcut, or Provincetown print, Marsden Hartley, Charles DeMuth, Hans Hoffman, (teacher of a generation of abstract expressionists), Fritz Bultman, Robert Motherwell, Jack Tworkov, Franz Kline, Ross Moffett, Peter Busa, even Mark Rothko. And more…The photos collected by Mazur show them at work in spaces both meager and more grand.
So where is the heartbreak? I can’t help but feel that in the seriousness of their endeavor, the dedication they showed to their work, the community they created both among themselves and with the town, they created a standard that we do not now come close to meeting. Not that I put myself even remotely in the rarified company of these artists, but the relentless focus now on the prices paid for art and the stratospheric sums paid for those favored by the international art fair crowd is nauseating and utterly un-connected to the joy of making art. It seems completely impossible to think of every getting back to the directness of these artists in their studios.
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