The Provincetown Artist Colony in Provincetown, Massachusetts, has been a center of artistic production for more than 100 years, and has cultivated some of the most unique artist groups in the nation.

The colony was founded in 1914 by Charles Hawthorne (1872-1930) and several other artists shortly after Hawthorne founded the Cape Cod School of Art in 1899. After returning from Europe, Hawthorne and Arthur Wesley Dow (1857-1922) found solace and inspiration in the aptly nick-named location “at the end of the world.” They taught the latest painting and printmaking techniques from Europe, and adapted them to their own style.

This exhibition features early 20th century woodblock prints created by students of Dow and Hawthorne, who formed what became known as the Provincetown Printers, the first color-print society in America. Blanche Lazzell, Margaret Jordan Patterson and Edna Boies Hopkins were further inspired by Japanese woodblock prints called ukiyo-e, or images of the “floating world.” Some artists in the group created a signature-look that consisted of carving the woodblock to form white borders between colors on the final image. Additional artists represented in the exhibition worked simultaneously in other parts of the world, experimenting and refining the American interpretation of this highly collectable medium, especially Robert James Enraght-Moony (Ireland) and John Hall Thorpe (Australia). These extraordinary prints are rarely exhibited due to their sensitivity to light.