Whatcom Museum Exhibition to Feature the Color Prints of Norma Bassett Hall

Attend a preview of the exhibit during a reception on Friday, Oct. 23 from 5:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m.
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Submitted by Whatcom Museum

Attend a preview  of the exhibit during a reception on Friday, Oct. 23 from 5:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m.
Attend a preview of the exhibit during a reception on Friday, Oct. 23 from 5:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m.

Opening at the Whatcom Museum’s Lightcatcher building on October 24, 2015, is the traveling exhibition, “Chipping the Block, Painting the Silk: The Color Prints of Norma Bassett Hall.” Guest curated by Joby Patterson, scholar and author of “Norma Bassett Hall: Catalogue Raisonné of the Block Prints and Serigraphs,” the exhibition presents a spectrum of the Oregon-born Hall’s twenty-five year career as a printmaker. The exhibition will be showing through February 14, 2016.

Hall, who was born in Halsey, Oregon, in 1888, was a watercolorist and oil painter, but her greatest love was color printmaking. After studying at the Portland Art Association School and graduating from the Art Institute of Chicago, she spent two years in Europe, where she learned the skills of block printmaking. She returned to live in Kansas, where she was a charter member of the Prairie Print Makers, and later New Mexico, where she became part of the pioneer movement in the development of serigraphy.

Hall was educated in early twentieth century America, when the Arts and Crafts movement was all the rage. This training is revealed not only in the carving of woodblocks as a form of craft, but in the Japanese-influenced style and interpretation of her subjects. As was typical of an Arts and Crafts artist, Hall found inspiration in the diverse landscapes that she encountered in her extensive travels through Oregon, New Mexico, France, and England.

This is the first solo exhibition of Hall’s artwork since her death in 1957, the first time that more than sixty of her prints have been gathered for exhibition, and likely the first time prints by the artist have been exhibited in the Pacific Northwest since a 1930 group retrospective at the Portland Art Association. Exhibited for the first time will be a cherry woodblock and a portfolio of color block prints depicting the Oregon coast, jointly made by Hall and her husband, artist Arthur William Hall (American, 1889-1981), on the occasion of their marriage in 1922.

Guest curator Joby Patterson has been involved with fine prints for more than thirty years. After research in black and white intaglio prints for the book Bertha E. Jaques and the Chicago Society of Etchers, Dr. Patterson’s new interests turned to color. Her most recent book, “Norma Bassett Hall: Catalogue Raisonné of the Block Prints and Serigraphs,” traces the adventurous and creative life of Hall and her spouse.

Patterson says she “hopes that visitors who enjoyed the Museum’s Elizabeth Colborne exhibition, [which showed at the Lightcatcher in 2011], will also enjoy Hall’s work, and that the exhibition will contribute to the appreciation and knowledge of color block print artists, especially from the Pacific Northwest.”

Patterson will share her adventures in uncovering Hall’s life and work during a tour of the exhibition on Sat., Oct. 24, 2:00 p.m. A book signing will follow the gallery tour. Museum members can attend a preview reception on Fri., Oct. 23, 5:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. All events will take place in the Lightcatcher building, 250 Flora Street.

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