Biography
Lance Wood Hart was born in 1891 in Lexington, KY but came to Aberdeen, WA as a child after the death of his father. Lance's uncle was a mill owner in Aberdeen, and the boy prospered in his new environment. By the time he was in high school, the local newspaper praised his "exceptional skills and abilities" as he was acclaimed for his oratory and acting.
From 1912-1916 Hart attended the Art Institute of Chicago, where he studied art and also worked as an actor and stage designer for regional theater groups. While still in school he exhibited at the Art Institute. He returned to Grays Harbor, WA to paint and direct local theater productions. World War I soon intervened, and Hart served in the U.S. Army Ambulance Corps from 1917-1918. In 1920 Hart created a 5-panel mural for the Aberdeen Moose Lodge. And in 1922 he exhibited at the Seattle Fine Arts Society (the forerunner of the Seattle Art Museum).
In 1922 Hart boarded a freighter in Portland and set sail for extended study in Europe. He traveled to Belgium, Holland, Denmark, Norway and Sweden, attending the Royal Academy of the Arts in Stockholm. He returned to Aberdeen in 1926 and married Clare Blake two years later.
By 1931 he was an Assistant Professor of Drawing and Painting at the University of Oregon. He and Clare had two daughters - Astrid, born in 1936, and Lucy, born in 1940. His book Observation Technique in Figure Drawing was published in 1938.
The town of Aberdeen, WA sits at the mouth of the Chehalis River, where it flows into the bay known as Grays Harbor. The mouth of the bay is marked by Point Brown to the north and Point Chehalis to the south. Just below Point Chelalis is the town of Westport and a small community called Cohasset Beach. This community was favored by artists as a summer retreat at the turn of the 20th century. Lance Hart owned a cottage there and drew inspiration from the area.
During the 1920s there was an asthmatic boy who had been born in Aberdeen and whose family brought him to Cohasset every summer for the sea air. The boy, like Hart himself, was interested in art, and Hart became his mentor. The boy, whose name was Robert Motherwell, always remembered his idyllic summers at Cohasset and the painter who had spurred his attraction to the world of art.
In 1939, after Motherwell had studied philosophy at Stanford and Harvard while still retaining his interest in art, Hart offered him a job at the University of Oregon. Hart had suffered a stroke that affected his speaking, and Motherwell took over Hart's art appreciation class. The pair taught studio painting jointly.
Hart's Post Office mural for Snohomish, WA, "The Construction of a Skid Road in the Eighties," was installed in 1940. Hart died the following year in Eugene, OR.
Critical Analysis
Lance Hart's paintings from the mid-teens through the mid 1920s were inspired by his understanding of European Impressionism and his interest in applying this style to scenes of the Pacific Northwest. It's a successful combination, given the prevailing fog and the availability of smoky industrial sites such as lumber mills.
Hart's first mural was for the Moose Lodge in Aberdeen in 1920. While the original work was not preserved, Hart's mural was reconstructed in 2015 at the Cascadia Museum in Edmonds, WA. The composition is more a nod to Art Deco style than an Impressionist work, with flat planes of color dominating. The reconstruction used Hart's original sketches and a few watercolor illustrations.
Hart's other surviving mural is the one he painted for the Snohomish Post Office. The scene is a lively one with ten busy loggers and laborers. The composition is engaging, with workers in the foreground, clad in jeans and brightly-colored shirts against a slightly hazy but very rainy background. The mural accurately captures the atmosphere of the Pacific Northwest and the intensity of the logging business.
The most significant contribution of Hart's brief career may be in his teaching. Certainly the time he spent to encourage the young Robert Motherwell is something for which the art world will always be grateful.
Murals
- Snohomish, Washington - City Hall: Construction of a Skid Road in the 80's
References
- Erik Sandgren, Harbor Artists, Washington Coast Magazine Summer (2016).
- Erik Sandgren, Harbor Artists, Washington Coast Magazine January 13 (2013).
- Lance Wood Hart (1891 - 1941) (ask ART).