David F. Martin – författare

One of the state's oldest arts organizations, Women Painters of Washington was founded in 1930 with the aim of overcoming limitations faced by women artists. Over its 75-year history, the group has counted among its members talented artists of national prominence whose stories have not been widely shared, until now.From founding members' early efforts to support fellow women artists, to contemporary members' cultural exchanges and international exhibitions, David F. Martin tells the story of Women Painters of Washington. He examines members' artistic achievements and the recognition they received in the national and international art worlds. In addition, a selection of works by current WPW members demonstrates the organization's continued vitality. Abundant color plates clearly illustrate the talent and innovation of these artists.

Richard Bennett (1899–1971) was a nationally known printmaker, painter, and illustrator, born in Ireland but raised in Washington State. He later divided his time between New York City and Seattle. A leading children’s book author and illustrator, he received national recognition for his woodblock prints and engravings. He was part of the inner circle of leading Northwest artists including Mark Tobey, Morris Graves, Kenneth Callahan, and Guy Anderson. In New York he became close to a group of artists and scholars that included the Abstract Expressionist Theodoros Stamos, etcher Thomas Handforth, and the scholar Edmond Tolk.Among the many children’s books he illustrated are the Paul Bunyon stories, Treasure Island, and Betty MacDonald’s The Egg and I and Mrs. Piggle Wiggle. David Martin places Bennett's work in the context of major American printmakers and illustrators and the changes in book production inspired by the Arts and Crafts Movement.

Territorial Hues: The Color Print and Washington State, 1920-1960 will consist of prints that display the cultural and stylistic influences used by Washington State artists to produce highly exceptional works that reflect the color, light, and atmosphere that is unique to this region. The book focuses on several mediums including color woodcut, intaglio, serigraphy, and lithography. The influences of Japanese prints and regional appropriations of international movements will be examined as well as the local production of white-line prints.

Celebrates the work of an influential Asian American photographerThis is the first study of the work of Chao-Chen Yang (1909–1969), an important Seattle photographer who gained national prominence in the mid-twentieth century. Born in Hangzhou, China, Yang received his art training at the University of Hsin-Hwa in Shanghai. After graduating, he became art director for the Government Institute of Nanking. In 1933 he moved to Chicago as chancellor of the Chinese Consulate and attended the Art Institute of Chicago. Initially trained as a painter, he later used photography as his main medium for artistic expression. In 1938 Yang was transferred to Seattle as chancellor of the Chinese Consulate and became actively involved with the Seattle Photographic Society. He was also an influential art and photography instructor and worked tirelessly to advance Chinese culture in the United States.Yang won numerous awards in important photography salons and became a Fellow of the Photographic Society of America, the Professional Photographers Association of America, and the Royal Photographic Society of Great Britain. He was a pioneer in color photography in the Northwest in both advertising and the fine arts.Exhibition dates: Cascadia Art Museum, November 9, 2023–February 11, 2024

A major rediscovery in the history of Northwest art Beulah Loomis Hyde (1886–1983) was an important cultural figure in Tacoma, Washington, as both a contemporary painter and a patron of the arts. Growing up in the rugged Northwest environment, Hyde was an athletic individualist who defied the societal restrictions of her time. She signed her paintings with initials to conceal her gender from possible limitations or exclusionary practices. Her early painting career was interrupted by the raising of three sons. After her sons matured, she returned to painting and expanded on her interest in modernism. In the 1930s, she began a series of paintings that utilized industrial and architectural subjects as her main themes. She developed a highly personal and sophisticated style that incorporated elements of precisionism, surrealism, and geometric abstraction. Although Hyde was considered one of the more accomplished and progressive regional artists in the early to mid-twentieth century, her work has remained primarily in the collections of her descendants, unavailable to the general public. With the resurgence of interest in and scholarship on the accomplishments of American women artists, this book and the corresponding exhibition introduce and reexamine a major talent whose work transcends the boundaries of gender and regionalism.

The rediscovery of an important American surrealist painterElsa Thoresen (1906–1994), born in Minnesota to Norwegian immigrant parents, studied at the School of Arts and Crafts and the Academy of Fine Arts in Oslo and at the Académie des Beaux-Arts in Brussels.After marrying Danish artist Vilhelm Bjerke Petersen in 1935, she began working in a surrealist style that brought her recognition in Europe. She was one of only a few women to be included in the International Surrealist Exhibition of 1938 in Paris. André Breton reproduced Thoresen’s Atmospheric Landscape (1936) in his Abridged Dictionary of Surrealism, published for the exhibition. Elsa became friends with several prominent European surrealists, including Sophie Taeuber-Arp. In 1938 Taeuber-Arp reproduced Thoresen’s Abstrakt komposition in the magazine Plastique, which she served as editor.Aside from a brief stay in Paris in 1938, Elsa and Vilhelm lived in Denmark from 1935 until 1944, when the couple and their children relocated to Sweden. There, they befriended and worked alongside the Swedish Halmstad Group of modernist and avant-garde painters.After World War II, the couple spent time in the United States before returning to Sweden in 1947. That year, Thoresen’s work was included in the International Exhibition of Surrealism, organized by Marcel Duchamp, André Breton, and Aimé Maeght at the Maeght Gallery in Paris. Elsa and Vilhelm divorced in 1953. She remarried and relocated to Seattle, where she focused her painting on lyrical, biomorphic abstractions until her death in 1994.