Abstract
BLANCHE LAZZELL (1878–1965)
Study for “Painting No. I,” 1924
Oil and gouache on paper, 10 x 9 1/4 in.
Signed and dated (at lower right): Blanche Lazzell, 1924
RECORDED. cf. Robert Bridges, ed., Blanche Lazzell: The Life and Work of an American Modernist (Morgantown, West Virginia: West Virginia University Press , 2004), Painting No I (1925), p. 281 colorplate 12
EX COLL: [Linda Hyman Fine Art, New York]; to [Valerie Carberry Gallery, Chicago, by 2010]; to private collection, Texas, until the present
Beginning around 1925, Lazzell produced a series of abstract, geometric, cubist-inspired oil paintings enigmatically titled “Painting No.” followed by a Roman numeral from I through XII. The present mixed media, dated 1924, and descriptively titled Study for “Painting No. I,", is the first version of the first painting of that series. It is a harbinger of the important series that followed. The larger 36 x 28 in. oil on canvas, a near replica of this gouache, is in the West Virginia University Art Collection.
