Participation Type
Paper
Presentation #1 Title
Patty Willis and the Modenist Appalachian Aesthetic
Presentation #1 Abstract or Summary
Largely overlooked in art history, Appalachia is a culturally rich area that spans a large portion of the South and spans the entirety of the Appalachian Mountains. and similar to Regional art movements, encompasses tradition, craft, labor history, and deeply engrained philosophies of self-sustainability culminating in a blending of folk and fine art. This paper explores this aesthetic through the lens of an Appalachian artist from West Virginia, Patty Willis (1879-1953), a multidisciplinary painter and scholar active during the height of Modernism –who studied with Leger in Paris, participated the WPA, as well as artist circles in New York City, Provincetown, and Europe with her contemporary painter and printmaker, Blanche Lazzell. Willis’s body of work encompasses the “Appalachian aesthetic,” as equal parts craft and high modernism, creating a unique and respectable ground in which to build a traceable contribution by a female Modernist to the history of Appalachia, as well as the larger canon of American Art.
At-A-Glance Bio- Presenter #1
Ali Printz is an artist and PhD student at the Tyler School of Art at Temple University who studies Modern and Contemporary Appalachian Art. She is originally from the Eastern Panhandle of West Virginia and her work as an artist encompasses the history and culture of Appalachia. She currently has a traveling solo show, “Appalachian Spring” with openings from New York to West Virginia, opening in November 2018 at Buxton Gallery in Thomas, West Virginia.
Patty Willis and the Modenist Appalachian Aesthetic
Largely overlooked in art history, Appalachia is a culturally rich area that spans a large portion of the South and spans the entirety of the Appalachian Mountains. and similar to Regional art movements, encompasses tradition, craft, labor history, and deeply engrained philosophies of self-sustainability culminating in a blending of folk and fine art. This paper explores this aesthetic through the lens of an Appalachian artist from West Virginia, Patty Willis (1879-1953), a multidisciplinary painter and scholar active during the height of Modernism –who studied with Leger in Paris, participated the WPA, as well as artist circles in New York City, Provincetown, and Europe with her contemporary painter and printmaker, Blanche Lazzell. Willis’s body of work encompasses the “Appalachian aesthetic,” as equal parts craft and high modernism, creating a unique and respectable ground in which to build a traceable contribution by a female Modernist to the history of Appalachia, as well as the larger canon of American Art.
