“Control must begin only after creation.”
—Grace Martin Frame TaylorGrace Martin Frame Taylor learned the artistry of the white-line woodcut through her older cousin and founding Pronvincetown Printer Blanche Lazzell, who likely first instructed Taylor in 1925 while visiting her brother in her native Morgantown, West Virginia, where Taylor also resided.Lazzell, twenty-five years Taylor’s senior, functioned as a teacher and mentor to her younger relative throughout her life, encouraging Taylor to pursue her development as a similarly-minded modern artist.
Studio Window is a complex print that combines a floral still life with the artist’s view of the Morgantown glass factory from her studio window. The perspective is distinctly Cubist-inspired, holding a large-scale pitcher-turned-vase in the interior foreground on the same plane as the distant scenery framed by her windowpanes. Taylor adeptly contrasts the wild assortment of flowers with the orderly row of houses visible out her window, introducing visual movement throughout - in the circular mat below the vase, the swirling strokes of the flower stems, and the structured lines of the windowsill and surrounding interior room. The occasional unfinished flower or building emphasizes the modernity of Taylor’s printmaking process and the painterly technique used in the work’s creation. Studio Window represents Taylor’s expertise in rendering intricate compositions, bringing intellectual order to imaginative impulses.