Grace Martin Taylor Sold at Auction Prices

3 Grace Martin Taylor Collages

Three (3) Grace Martin Frame Taylor (West Virginia, 1903-1995) collages with watercolor. 1st item: A horizontally oriented composition with a photograph of a woman's legs and an apple juxtaposed with tan paper triangles and white painted lines and set against a black paper background. Sight: 3 5/16" H x 4 3/4" W. Frame: 7 1/8" H x 9 1/8" W. 2nd item: A horizontally oriented composition with a photograph of a flower and the back legs of a horse placed alongside a painted botanical form. With tan paper triangle and red and black painted areas, all set against an orange paper background. Sight: 3 7/16" H x 4 13/16" W. Frame: 7 1/8" H x 9 1/8" W. 3rd item: A vertically oriented composition with photographs of the legs and tutu of a ballerina, a flower, and a human ear set atop a tan paper triangle and augmented with red and white painted areas, all on a brown paper background. Sight: 4 7/8" H x 3 7/16" W. Frame: 7 1/8" H x 9 1/8" W. All signed in black pen with initials "GMT." All under glass in white and gilt wood frames with tan mats. Biographical Note: "Born in Morgantown, West Virginia, Grace Martin Taylor was a younger cousin of Blanche Lazzell, who encouraged her artistic talent. In 1921 she enrolled at West Virginia University, Morgantown, which Lazzell had first attended some twenty years earlier. Not finding instruction in the studio arts at West Virginia University sufficiently rigorous, in 1922 Grace Taylor supplemented her studies at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, Philadelphia, where her teachers Arthur B. Carles and Henry McCarter introduced her to abstraction. After graduating from West Virginia University in 1929, she took up Lazzell's invitation to come to Provincetown, where she learned the technique of white-line colour woodblock printing and soon assumed proficiency. Taylor joined the American Color Print Society as one of its founders as well as the Woodcut Society based in Kansas City, Missouri. In 1933, one of her woodcuts, Studio Window, was nominated by the Printmakers Society of California for the Fifty Best Prints of the Year. Although she made periodic visits to Provincetown, where, like Lazzell, she attended Hans Hofmann's summer classes in the 1940s, Taylor largely spent her career in West Virginia, where she was committed to art education. For more than forty years she taught at Mason College of Music and Fine Art in Charleston, eventually becoming its president. In 1931 she set up the Allied Artists of West Virginia, helping with its exhibitions; she also established the Creative Arts Festival of West Virginia and sat on various state educational and historical bodies. Her commitment to art education in West Virginia brought her several official honours. In 1998 the National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington, recognized her role as a woman pioneer of American abstraction with a special display of her 1938 painting Still Life with Ukulele." Source: The British Museum

Grace Martin Frame Taylor (United States) 1903-1995. Charleston,W.V. Woodcut, 1937. Ref: Not in Bridges/WVU. Ed: Unknown. Uncommon. ...

Grace Martin Frame Taylor (United States) 1903-1995. Charleston,W.V. Woodcut, 1937. Ref: Not in Bridges/WVU. Ed: Unknown. Uncommon. Signed "Frame" and dated with pencil, l.r. Titled with pencil,l.l. Printed by the artist in black ink on japan paper with small, even margins but irregular edges. 64 x 89 mm. (2 1/2 x 3 1/2 in.) Church, White Sulpher. Woodcut, 1939. Ref: Not in Bridges/WVU. Ed: Unknown. Uncommon. Signed "Frame" and dated with pencil, l.r. Titled with pencil, l.l. Printed in black ink on dark cream japan with small, irregular margins. 70 x 93 mm. (2 3/4 x 3 5/8 in.) Charleston (West Virginia). Woodcut, 1935. Ref: Not in Bridges/WVU. Ed: Unknown. Uncommon. Signed "Grace Martin Frame" and dated with pencil, l.r. titled with pencil, l.l. Printed by the artist in black ink on light laid japan with small, mainly even margins all around. 64 x 99 mm. ( 2 1/2 x 3 7/8 in.). This winter scene is the State Capitol campus viewed from the Kanawha River. (3)

Grace Martin Taylor, (1903-1995), Untitled (Provincetown), 1946, charcoal on paper, 22 1/4"H x 17 1/4"W (image) 31 1/4"H x 26 1/4"W (frame)

Grace Martin Taylor (1903-1995) Untitled (Provincetown), 1946 charcoal on paper Signed lower left. Signed lower right. Executed during her time as a student of Hans Hofmann. Biography from The Johnson Collection: Frequently, artists who are educators are also perpetual students, a pattern borne out in the career of Grace Martin Frame Taylor. A native of Morgantown, West Virginia, she was brought up in a household that emphasized music and so began piano lessons at the age of five. This early training served her well when she launched a nearly forty-year affiliation with the Mason College of Music and Fine Arts, now part of the University of Charleston in West Virginia. In her teaching, Taylor often drew analogies between music and the visual arts, and she emphasized the individuality of creative processes: "there is no formula for abstract painting. . . . Each artist has his own approach. I use a subject only for inspiration. Then I break it down into its simplest elements and develop it from there." In 1921, Taylor enrolled at the University of West Virginia in her hometown; disappointed by the art curriculum, however, she left after just one year to attend the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. The distinguished Philadelphia school offered a thorough course of artistic study, and, during her time there, Taylor was introduced to contemporary trends by modernist Arthur B. Carles. She returned to the University of West Virginia in 1924 to finish her bachelor's degree, selecting English as her major, with an emphasis on journalism; she eventually earned a master's degree there in 1929. Following her graduation, Taylor went to Provincetown, Massachusetts, and renewed her interest in art under the guidance of her distant cousin Blanche Lazzell. Both Provincetown and Lazzell had gained a significant reputation for a particular kind of color woodblock printmaking. Known as the white line method, it enabled artists like Lazzell and Anna Heyward Taylor to cut and print from a single block of wood, rather than the multiple blocks typically used in traditional woodblock prints. The visual end result is a white line that separates one color area from another. Grace Taylor embraced this approach wholeheartedly; for twenty-eight summers she returned to Provincetown to advance her printmaking skills with Lazzell and Heinrich Pfeiffer. In the ensuing decades, she also studied under Hans Hofmann whom she called her "very favorite modern master." In addition to her time in Provincetown, Taylor traveled to other destinations to further her education. In the late 1930s and early 1940s, she spent time at the Carnegie Institute of Technology in Pittsburgh; closer to home, she studied at the Old White Art Colony in White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia, and took lessons in portraiture in the capital city of Charleston in 1941. Farther afield, she went to Taos, New Mexico, and received instruction from Emil Bisttram whose abstract work is characterized by geometric shapes and bright colors. In the 1950s, she headed to the Akron Art Institute and Ohio University for classes in painting and printmaking respectively; in 1960, she went to the Art Students League in New York. Taylor's home base, however, was in Charleston; in 1929, she joined the faculty at Mason College as an instructor, was promoted to associate professor, moved on to lead the art department, and then assumed the deanship. Ultimately, Taylor became president of the college; after its merger with Morris Harvey College in 1956, she continued to teach for another twelve years. As an advocate for artistic activity in the state, Taylor was involved in the founding of the Allied Artists of West Virginia in 1931, serving as its president 1932–1934. Thirty years later, she helped to establish the Creative Arts Festival of West Virginia. Since her death, Taylor's work has been widely exhibited, most notably at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the National Academy of Design, the Smithsonian Institution, the National Museum of Women in the Arts, and the British Museum. The Art Museum of West Virginia University owns more than two hundred of Taylor's works, many of which were donated by the artist's daughter.

GRACE MARTIN (FRAME) TAYLOR (1903-1995) Earth Sounds, 1962, Casein

GRACE MARTIN (FRAME) TAYLOR (1903-1995) Earth Sounds, 1962, Casein

GRACE MARTIN (FRAME) TAYLOR, West Virginia, 1903-1995, "Bittersweet"., Color wood block on paper, image size 14" x 12". Sheet size 1...

GRACE MARTIN (FRAME) TAYLOR West Virginia, 1903-1995 "Bittersweet". Signed lower right "Grace Martin Frame - 1934". Titled lower left. Grace Martin Taylor studied with her cousin, Blanche Lazzell. Color wood block on paper, image size 14" x 12". Sheet size 18" x 15.75". Unframed.

GRACE MARTIN (FRAME) TAYLOR, West Virginia, 1903-1995, "Tulips"., Color wood block on paper, plate size 14.5" x 12". Sheet size 18"...

GRACE MARTIN (FRAME) TAYLOR West Virginia, 1903-1995 "Tulips". Signed lower right "Grace Martin Frame - 1930". Titled lower left. Grace Martin Taylor studied with her cousin, Blanche Lazzell. Color wood block on paper, plate size 14.5" x 12". Sheet size 18" x 16". Unframed.

GRACE MARTIN TAYLOR (1903-1995), Provincetown Harbor, 1965, Oil

GRACE MARTIN TAYLOR (1903-1995), Provincetown Harbor, 1965, Oil

Grace Taylor Martin: (1903-1995) 2 colored wood block print

Artist: Martin, Grace Taylor (1903-1995) Title: Untitled Medium: 2 colored wood block print Size (H x W): 4.5 x 3.5 Signature: slr Frame Size (H x W): 12 x 11 Frame Style: frame/matte/glass Notes: artist's information attached verso Provenance: local private art collection Condition: very good About the Artist: (1903-1995) Currently has exhibition at ACME Fine Art, Boston. Studied at Univ. W. Va. (A.B. and M.A.), with Blanche Lazzell, Henry McCarter, at PAFA with Arthur Carles, with Emil Bisttram in Taos, New Mexico, and Hans Hofmann at Sch. FA. Provincetown. Exhibitions include: MoMA, NAD, Smithsonian Institution, Baltimore Mus. of Art, Corcoran Gallery, Brooklyn Museum, Virginia Museum of Fine Art, and National Museum of Women in the Arts. Most recently, four of her white-line woodblock prints were featured in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston’s 2002 exhibition From Paris to Provincetown. Blanche Lazzell was her cousin and mentor.

PROVINCETOWN HARBOR BY GRACE MARTIN TAYLOR (CHARLESTON, WEST VIRGINIA, 1903-1995).

PROVINCETOWN HARBOR BY GRACE MARTIN TAYLOR (CHARLESTON, WEST VIRGINIA, 1903-1995). Oil on canvas, signed and dated 1965 lower right. Colorful abstract of sailing ships in harbor. Some professional restoration. Unframed, 29"h. 19"w. Ex Dr. Henry Wolf (West Virginia).

GRACE MARTIN TAYLOR (American, 1903-1995) COLORFUL ABSTRACT

GRACE MARTIN TAYLOR (American, 1903-1995) COLORFUL ABSTRACT. Oil on canvas scene shows a figure in colors of green, red, gold and blue. Scene may depict a golfer. Signed lower left "Taylor". Housed in a painted simple wood frame original to the painting and probably by the artist. SIZE: 11" x 14". CONDITION: There is consolidation and craquelure of paint, small abraded hole. Otherwise good. 9-70139

GRACE MARTIN TAYLOR (American, 1903-1995) COLORFUL ABSTRACT

Oil on canvas scene shows a figure in colors of green, red, gold and blue. Scene may depict a golfer. Signed lower left "Taylor". Housed in a painted simple wood frame original to the painting and probably by the artist. SIZE: 11" x 14". CONDITION: There is consolidation and craquelure of paint, small abraded hole. Otherwise good. 9-70139

Grace Martin Taylor (American, b. 1903), Tablature I, Signed ""GRACE MARTIN TAYLOR"" l.r., Condition: Good., Acrylic and sand on canvas