Timeline

1878

Born Nettie Blanche Lazzell on October 10th in Maidsville, West Virginia

1901 - 1905

Studies painting at West Virginia University and obtains degrees in liberal arts, literature, and fine arts

1907 - 1908

Moves to New York City; studies with William Merritt Chase at the Arts Students League in a class that includes Georgia O’Keeffe

1912 - 1913

Travels to Europe and settles in Paris; attends the Academie Julian and Academie Moderne in Paris; visits Italy, studies old masters painting

1913 - 1914

Returns to West Virginia and opens her own art school

1915 - 1916

Moves to Provincetown, Massachusetts, an art colony; studies with Charles Hawthorne at the Cape Cod School of Art; exhibits at the Provincetown Art Association; works with single-block color woodcut; becomes important member of the Provincetown art community

1916 - 1917

Returns to New York City; summers in Woodstock, New York, an art colony where she studies with William Zorach and Oliver Newberry Chaffee, who teaches her white line color woodcuts; she becomes a leading figure in the color woodblock print in America

1918 - 1919

Exhibits with Provincetown Printers Group and the Provincetown Art

1920

Exhibits at the Boston Art Club where Charles Demuth admires her work

1921

Exhibits at the Society of Independent Artists, New York

1923 - 1924

Moves to Paris at age forty-five; studies Cubism with Albert Gleizes, Fernand Leger, and Andre L’hote; participates in group exhibitions at the Salon d’Automne, Paris (exhibits there annually for next six years); Leger writes an essay specifically for Lazzell; takes private lessons with Gleizes in 1924 who teaches her “Golden Section” principles of form and space; her work becomes increasingly abstract and cubist

1925

Returns to Morgantown, West Virginia, never to visit Europe again

1926 - 1927

Returns to Provincetown and builds a studio where she teaches art; starts dividing time between Provincetown and Morgantown; exhibits at Brooklyn Museum, New York

1928 - 1929

Invited to become a member of the Societe Anonyme (founded in 1920 by Marcel Duchamp, Man Ray, and Katherine Dreier to promote modern and abstract art in America); exhibits at the Los Angeles Museum, 1929

1930

Exhibition at the Rhode Island School of Design

1933

Depression forces return to Morgantown for employment by the Public Works of Art and the WPA; paints a mural in Morgantown court room (now in Morgantown Public Library)

1936 - 1937

Exhibits at Museum of Modern Art, New York; studies with Hans Hofmann

1940 - 1942

Participates in group exhibitions: Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.; Whitney Museum, New York; National Academy of Art, New York

1943

Visits Hans Hofmann in New York

1944

Exhibits at Ravenscroft Gallery, New York

1946

Exhibits at the Seligmann Gallery, New York

1949

Attends Hofmann’s criticism classes

1956

Dies June 1st in Morgantown, West Virginia