FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: 7.15.00

MASTERWORKS - The Provincetown Print - Past and Present

Artists Reception 7pm Friday, July 21.

Exhibition continues through August 3.

Julie Heller Gallery is pleased to present the annual exhibition of Provincetown Masterworks, an exclusive showing of prints created by the remarkable group of artists associated with Provincetown, past and present.  Working in a diversity of styles and mediums, these artists have played an important role in the history of twentieth century American printmaking and continue to influence its development.

This extraordinary exhibition includes prints by Milton Avery, Peggy Bacon, Bill Behnken, W. H. W. Bicknell, Varujan Boghosian, George Elmer Browne, Oliver Chaffee, Ora Coltman, Morgan Dennis, Albert Edel, Emily Edwards, John Evans, Louise Freedman, Ada Gilmore, Dorothy Lake Gregory, Michael Hew Wing, Edna Boles Hopkins, Karl Knaths, Blanche Lazzell, Tod Lindenmuth, Lucy L'Engle, Clare Leighton, Mildred McMillan, Lorraine Mainelli, Leo Manso, Ethel Mars, Ross Moffett, Robert Motherwell, Ray Nolin, B.J.O. Nordfeldt, Nick Patten, Willy Reddick, Flora Schoenfeld, Jack Tworkov, Hope Voorhees Pfeiffer, Elizabeth B. Warren, Coulton Waugh, Patrick Webb, Donald Witherstine, Karl Young, Marguerite and William Zorach, and Patricia Zur.

The collection includes examples of many different printmaking techniques -- monotypes, lithographs, aquatints, mezzotints, etchings, serigraphs and whiteline wood block prints, the latter a single-block color method, the colors separated by slender grooves, which was developed in Provincetown by a group known as the "Provincetown Printers," established in 1918.  These printmakers -- Ethel Mars, B.J.O. Nordfeldt, Ada Gilmore, Mildred McMillen. Maud Hunt Squire, and Juliette Nichols -- are of particularly high interest to collectors of Twentieth Century American art. The work of contemporary whiteline printers Patricia Zur and Willy Reddick will be included in the exhibit

Bill Behnken, exhibits his, luminous, often nocturnal prints - cityscapes from his native New York and nostalgic vistas and backstreets of Provincetown - mostly in tones of black and white, and still lifes.  Behnken in nationally renowned as a printmaker and teacher of printing and the history of printmaking at many prestigious institutions.  He teaches at the Art Students League and City College in New York in the winter, and at the Museum School of the Provincetown Art Association and Museum in the summer.

There is a wonderful collection of monotypes by Heather Bruce and John Evans. Evans' work is an example of prints that were featured in Singular Impressions: The Monotype in America, at the National Museum of American Art.

Clare Leighton has been called one of the leading contemporary masters of woodcut and design in black and white.

The only color print that Hans Hofmann ever made, Composition in Blue (1952), can be seen in this exhibition.  A serigraph hand-touched with gouache, Hofmann's experimentation with this medium retains the spontaneity and energy that drew so many young artists to study with him both here in Provincetown and in New York, and ignited the revolutionary move to Abstract Expressionism.

Oliver Chaffee taught Blanche Lazzell the whiteline color woodblock process.  It seemed the natural medium for this extraordinary abstract painter and pioneer modernist. Her bold forms and strong colors were well suited to this new technique.

Primarily self-taught, Milton Avery began making drypoints on the copper and zinc scraps thrown out from a photoengraver's studio.  These pieces, usually depicting more domestic scenes of family and friends, would stand in contrast to the more fanciful woodcuts done later in his life.

Robert Motherwell is known for his masterful prints, his line, expansive form and color, and, by some, as the 'organizer' of the abstract expressionist movement. His innovative prints revolutionized the medium and have been the subject of major retrospectives at the Museum of Modern Art in New York.

Using stone and aluminum plates, Nick Patten creates lithographs of interior spaces; then he hand colors them.  His interest is in working out ways to elevate common scenes, sometimes posing the ordinary - the living room window, the reading chair -- or using light to heighten the tension found in a familiar corner.

The strong focus on light and shadow create an intimacy that is both timeless and a single moment in time.

This special annual exhibition which gathers the work of a stunning group of historic and contemporary Provincetown printmakers, is testimony to the breadth and depth and significance of the collection of the Julie Heller Gallery.

For further details and photographs, Please call Julie Heller Gallery,

508-487-2169.