 | Seattle-based curator David Martin has made it his business to discover and resurrect the reputations of early Northwest artists whom history has forgotten. KUOW critic, Gary Faigin, reviews the current Whatcom Museum show of the pioneer Bellingham landscape artist Elizabeth Colborne as a case in point. Dividing her time between the Northwest and New York City, she produced a series of color woodblock prints of local landmarks like Mt. Baker and Bellingham Bay that bring a sophisticated cosmopolitan sensibility to the depiction a region still emerging from the surrounding wilderness. Her parallel career as a successful children’s book illustrator also highlights her struggles as a single, female artist in a period where few such women were able to pursue a full-time artistic path. |
