The Old Graveyard, Provincetown

Maker Ada Gilmore (American, 1883-1955)

Date1919

Mediumcolor woodblock print

Dimensionsimage: 11 3/8 × 9 7/8 in. (28.9 × 25.1 cm)
sheet: 15 1/16 × 11 5/8 in. (38.3 × 29.5 cm)
mat: 20 × 16 in. (50.8 × 40.6 cm)

Credit LineGift of Patricia Boyd Wilson

Exhibition History"Passion on Paper: Masterly Prints from the KIA Collection," March 17 - July 15, 2018, Groos Gallery.Label Text"This masterwork in the KIA collection has additional significance because the artist was a native of Kalamazoo. This is a quintessential example of a Provincetown Print, a new form of woodcut invented by a small number of artists, including Gilmore, who worked in Provincetown, Massachusetts, during World War I. In traditional color woodcut printing every color is printed from a separately cut block. However, this entire scene was made on a single piece of wood. The process involves carving the outlines of the composition into the block and painstakingly hand-painting every segment of the composition, printing it, cleaning the block, and repeating the procedure segment-by-segment until the picture is finished. Gilmore was a great experimenter. She varied both the colors she used and the manner in which she painted the segments from impression to impression. Notice how the faces of the women are unique portraits, as are the flowers. Multi-colored pigment application in areas such as the tombstone at the feet of the figure in the foreground and the steeple of the church are hallmarks of the Provincetown printing style (written by Nancy Sojka for Passion on Paper: Masterly Prints from the KIA Collection, 2018.)"

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