Norma Bassett Hall 1889 - 1959

The folder which accompanied Norma Bassett Hall’s Gift Print created in 1943 for the Prairie Print Makers described her as a quiet, self-effacing woman, not prone to idle conversation but “standing out from the crowd...by the gleam of humor in her observant eyes.” This quiet, rather reclusive nature made her well suited for her pursuit of creating color wood block prints.  The careful attention and long hours needed to cut as many as six blocks from a hard wood, then inking the blocks and printing them with careful registration all required uninterrupted periods of time in order to achieve her level of perfection.

Norma was born in the small town of Halsey, Oregon, and it was not until she attended seventh and eight grade in  Portland, where art instruction was given in the schools, that she discovered not just her interest but talent as an artist. She particularly loved water color and special praise for her work and her selection to be in an exhibition set in motion her interest in becoming an artist.  More time passed before she was able to return to Portland to seriously study art.  She first studied with a private instructor and then at the Portland Art Association School.  She combined a small scholarship with assistant-teacher work and graduated from this art school in three years.  Seeking yet more instruction, she left Oregon in 1915 and moved to Illinois to study at the Chicago Art Institute.  During the fall of her second year she met her future husband, Arthur Hall. She described the timing of this encounter in a later interview, “...(it) was perhaps better so in so far as our work was concerned, for a romance immediately developed at an alarming rate of speed.” By the next spring, however, America had entered the war and Arthur volunteered and joined the US Infantry in Southern France. Norma finished her degree at the Art Institute and immediately got what she called her “war job” in a drafting office.  At the end of the war she returned to her native Oregon, and established a studio in Portland and taught art in the high school. Arthur had found a job as a court reporter in El  Dorado, Kansas, after he returned from his service in France.  Norma and Arthur resumed their courtship and were married in 1922 .  They took a honeymoon along the Oregon coast and documented this trip by creating a book with 30 block-print illustrations of their travels.  This little book was the beginning of their print making teamwork. It served to convince Norma that this was the medium for her, while Arthur returned to his interest in etchings. 

Norma then returned to El Dorado with Arthur and began pursuing in earnest her interest in block prints and she also found work teaching school.  In 1924 Norma and Arthur rented their home in El  Dorado and used this income for a year-long trip that included the southern coast of France, England, and Scotland.  During their travels they met the English etcher E.S. Lumsden and his wife, the well known block print artist, Mable Royds.  They became good friends and consequently spent the year working in their studio in Edinburg.  Royds introduced Norma to the Japanese method of printing woodcuts on rice paper with transparent watercolors, rather than the opaque oil base colors she had employed up to that time. Following this initial exposure, Hall adopted this method exclusively for her color block prints. Her distinctive images were printed using as many as six or seven colors, each of which required a separate, hand-cut, hardwood block typically of her favorite cherry wood. 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.

The Halls then returned to Kansas, settling in the small community of Howard, and they became very involved in the close group of artists in nearby Wichita. They were frequent visitors in Seward’s home and studio.  By 1927 Seward began organizing the first annual national exhibition of American Block Prints in Wichita and this proved an ideal venue for exposure for Norma’s work. Four of her prints were selected for this first exhibition and they continued to be chosen in following years by the jury. The acceptance of her work not only documents the evolution of her style but also her position among the noted print makers and block print artists of her time. Her work was published and she was invited to become a member of the Printmakers Society of California as well as other prestigious print groups of the era. In December of 1930, the Halls joined the rest of this Wichita-based group of artists in their first formal meeting as the Prairie Print Makers.  The Halls, and particularly Norma, had worked with Seward in the plans for this group.  Norma created the logo for the Prairie Printmakers and then in 1943 the Annual Gift Print.

The Halls remained in Howard until after Seward’s death in 1939 when they decided to move to Virginia where they built a lovely home and produced an impressive group of prints. The advent of World War II changed their sentiments about this new home and they returned briefly to Kansas.  By 1944 they had an opportunity to purchase the Santa Fe home and studio of artist, Gerald Cassidy. This large 200 year-old adobe home and studio provided an ideal situation until 1950 when they were able to purchase a large hacienda outside of Santa Fe and open their own summer art school.  

After their move to New Mexico, Norma continued her work with block prints, and began to apply some of her techniques to making serigraphs.  Both she and Arthur eventually began to focus more on their work as painters. By August of 1951 they had a joint exhibition which included her color wood block prints and serigraphs, as well as oil paintings and watercolors. After a lengthy and difficult illness Norma died of complications from cancer in 1959.

Norma's travels in Europe and America, her homes in Oregon, Kansas, Virginia, and New Mexico provided ample material for her subject matter. Her prints often have her initials carved into the block on the lower right corner.  She then from left to right, under the printed image, numbered, titled and signed her prints. Her known color block prints and serigraphs (noted with an S) in  addition to the photographs of the prints shown below are: 

Croft at Crainlarich       A Street VilleFrancche            A Provencal Villlage

Street of the Arches      Portree Bay                              Mount Hood -  Oregon             

The Golden Maple        First Snow                               Thawing Snow               

Whale Cove                   Work + Play                           Road to the Village (S) 

The Village Church       Marigolds      

                                             

Images above (left to right, top to bottom): April, 1931 issue of The American Architect which featured Norma Bassett Hall’s work, photograph of courtyard at home and summer art school at Rancho del Rio, the logo of the Prairie Print Makers designed by Hall and two photographs of Hall one from about 1931, the other from about 1943. Below right hand column, a block print titled Cineria by Mabel Royds, mentor of Norma Bassett Hall.