Norma Bassett Hall

Norma Bassett Hall and her husband, Arthur Hall, were among the founding members of the Kansas-based Prairie Print Makers. The group of artists formed the printmakers' society on Dec. 28, 1930, in the Lindsborg studio of Birger Sandzen. Not only was Mrs. Hall the only woman in the group, she also was the only one to establish a reputation exclusively through color prints, at first with her woodcuts, and later, her serigraphs. Two of her works, "La Gaude - France," and "Portree Day," are among the Orlin C. and Margaret Baker Collection, which is part of Barton's Permanent Art Collection. "La Gaude - France" was selected to be the Prairie Print Makers gift print for 1943. Mrs. Hall participated in many annual group shows and touring exhibitions, and her work was presented in one-person exhibitions at the United States National Museum, the Honolulu Academy of Arts and the Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris. At different times, her work was featured in issues of American Artist, American Magazine of Art and the Print Connoisseur. Norma Bassett was born May 21, 1889, in Halsey, Oregon. An early interest in drawing and painting eventually led to three years of study at the Portland Art Association. After graduation, she taught art in small schools and accepted private pupils. In 1915, she enrolled at the Chicago Art Institute. Arthur Hall entered the Institute at the same time, and the two met the following year. Their courtship was interrupted by World War I and Arthur's enlistment in the Army. Norma graduated from the Institute in June 1918 and worked in a drafting office for the remainder of the war. In 1920, she returned to Portland, established a studio, and taught in the high school. After two years, she and Arthur Hall were married. Possibly the most important impetus to Mrs. Hall's development as a printmaker occurred during the Halls' two-year trip to Europe between 1925 and 1927. In Edinburgh, she met and studied with Mable Royds, wife of the English etcher E.S. Lumsden. Royds introduced her to the Japanese method of printing woodcuts on rice paper with transparent watercolors, rather than the opaque oilbase colors she had employed up to that time. Following this initial exposure, Mrs. Hall adopted this method exclusively for her color blockprints. Her distinctive images were printed using as many as six or seven colors, each of which required a separate, hand-cut, hardwood block. In later years, she duplicated the effect to a certain extent in her serigraphs, which were created during the years the Halls lived in New Mexico, where Mrs. Hall died in 1957. During their brief stay in Kansas, the Halls lived in the small southeastern community of Howard. Their travels and periodic changes of residence provided Norma with a wide range of subjects for her prints, including European, Kansas and Southwestern images. Regardless of the subject matter, however, she was always praised, as one author wrote, for her "scrupulous care in combining beautiful pattern with satisfying color." - O'Neill, Barbara Thompson and George C. Foreman, in cooperation with Howard W. Ellington, The Prairie Print Makers, Gallery Ellington, 1984.

Norma Bassett Hall LaGaude, France color block print (Donated by Margaret O. Baker)