Provincetown: From Pilgrim Landing to Gay Resort

3 “Paradise of Artists”

3 “Paradise of Artists” The popularity of [Provincetown] is what may be called an artist’s paradise . The blending of sea and sand and the ever changing color of the foliage make it a picture of beauty on many canvases. —Isaac Morton Small, Just a Little about the Lower Cape, 1926 THE STRATEGIES for marketing Provincetown shifted in 1899 when the renowned painter Charles Webster Hawthorne founded the Cape Cod School of Art (CCSA) at Land’s End. In the mid-1800s the arts in New England had assumed new meaning as Americans began to shape and appreciate their regional histories and cultures in new ways. Artists, their studios, and their New England landscapes and seascapes had become prized tourist attractions, and by the time Hawthorne opened the CCSA, white middle- and upper-class travelers were already flocking to destinations where they could see an artist at work. Tourists were convinced that exposure to this kind of creativity could alter their lives in profoundly spiritual ways. They also believed that viewing native-born artists was a patriotic function, that being a good tourist was linked to being a good American.1 In the mid-1880s Provincetown’s vast expanse of rolling sand hills reminded the Boston-based artist Marcus Waterman of the dunes he had painted in Algeria in 1879 and 1883. Provincetown captivated Waterman , who urged fellow Boston artists like Ross Moffett to “come on down to the end of the Cape, and see one of the most remarkable places in the country.”2 Even so, Provincetown regards 1899 as the official beginning of its art colony because that was the year Hawthorne arrived.3 What made Hawthorne critical to Provincetown’s fame was his decision not only to paint at Land’s End but also to instruct there. The CCSA 69 attracted hundreds of art students, dozens of well-known artists, and multitudes of tourists. On any summer day during this era, one was likely to stumble on the well-dressed Hawthorne teaching a large group of equally elegant women on a picturesque side street, in an overgrown garden, or along the waterfront. In 1900 the modernist Ambrose Webster joined Hawthorne and opened his Summer School of Painting. Soon after, George Elmer Browne started his West End School of Art; the Modern Art School on Lewis Wharf was established; and George Senseney offered etching classes.4 By 1916 roughly six hundred artists and art students were spending the summer in Provincetown, and no fewer than six art schools were urging aspiring students to join them at Land’s End. The Boston Globe encapsulated this artistic energy in a banner headline on August 27, 1916: “Biggest Art Colony in the World at Provincetown.”5 Artists sustained this momentum for decades: Ross Moffett and Heinrich Pfeiffer initiated the Provincetown Painting Classes in the 1920s; Henry Hensche continued the CCSA through the 1930s; and Hans Hofmann opened his Summer School of Art in 1935. Unlike the necklace of galleries in the East End that make up a good part of Provincetown’s art colony today, an array of art schools, associations , clubs, and studios formed the art colony in its earliest years. One year after the Provincetown Art Association opened its doors in 1914, the Provincetown Printers coalesced as a woodblock printing group. Visual artists founded the all-male Beachcombers Club and the all-female Sail Loft Club in the mid-1910s. And Hawthorne, Moffett, and others congregated at Days Lumberyard Studios at 24 Pearl Street, where the Fine Arts Work Center is currently located, as well as at the studio spaces at 4 Brewster Street. Later, during the Depression, the Works Projects Administration stepped in and kept the art colony afloat by funding a number of year-round artists including George Yater, Blanche Lazzell, and Vollian Rann.6 Besides the artists, Yankee businessmen also supported Provincetown ’s budding art colony. In 1914, prominent Yankees collaborated with artists to form the Provincetown Art Association and to fund its first traveling exhibition. William H. Young, president of Seaman’s Savings Bank and a high-ranking officer of both the Provincetown Board of Trade and the Cape Cod Pilgrim Memorial Association, was also the first president of the art association, holding the post for twenty-two years. Moses N. Gifford, an officer on the board of trade and the CCPMA, was the art association’s first dues-paying member. Other 70 “PARADISE OF ARTISTS” [18.223.196.211] Project...