ANALYSIS OF THE ARTIST'S WORK

The passage of time often secrets talents into the folds of history and leaves work for artful historians to uncover. In 1941, ArtNews wrote that her work had, "a flair for design and a special talent for editing nature down to a mood…some of the compositional simplicity of her teacher, Andre L’Hote." In 1944, the New York Times described Lane’s early work at Galerie St. Etienne, as "stark simplicity with a strong semi-abstract tendency." The same year the New York Herald Tribune categorized her work as "decadent and bare. Instead of being drab and chilling to the spirit, these pictures contain a surprising amount of pleasing color and are smoothly and capably painted."

Lane’s earlier work is influenced by surrealism and her sentiment to a subject. As, curator of Special Exhibitions at the Cape Cod Museum of Art, Ann Wilson Lloyd, remarked in 1997, "Lane kept her flair for going beyond merely pretty, pushing it further in some works than others. Intelligent and forever searching, Betty Lane maintained a fiercely independent soul." This was at a time when the contemporary art world was looking into academic impressionism and American regional painting and also becoming aware of the European Modernist movements.

By the 1940s, Lane sorted out her many influences and painted with distinction. She painted portraits of family, friends and close collectors. The compositions revealed an insight into individual lives. On June 8th, 1941, the New York Times stated, "Most of these canvases and watercolors are small, simple in pattern, detached in spirit, very personal in conceptions and treatment…(with) an evident tendency in the direction of semi-abstract design." Her work goes beyond "pretty" reaching into the emotions of the portrait as well as the viewer. Often her works included dark and powerful of people as well as desolate street scenes and landscapes. Lane’s son remarked,

These portraits struck me as a memorable record of a neighborhood, and a community, over time. Yet she had never exhibited many of them, saying that, although most of the subjects were now dead, there were still family members around who might be offended. What struck me the most was how her technique, approach and vision continued to evolve throughout her working life. Just as, in her everyday conversation, she always had a fresh take on the world, so in her art she never continued to produce a type of work simply because she could do it well, but seemed always to be seeking a newer and better language to express her evolving vision of people and the world. Her natural connection with children, and her ability to perceive them as full individuals, may account in part for her extraordinary portraits of them, which some, compelling qualities of early American primitive portraiture.

Her skills relied on basic training of classical composition, balance and harmony. Lane wanted her pieces to speak of her feelings often manipulating earlier techniques such as controlling the planes of color.

Betty’s son Nicholas is the subject of many of her portraits, as they trace his life through childhood and adolescence. The complexities of their relationship that between a single mother and her only child, contribute an intense substance to her works. One painting of Nicholas in particular highlights the force and edge that she injected into her reflections of him. In the painting, which resides on the cover of a retrospective booklet titled, Betty Lane: Painting a Life, she places her son in the center of the vertical picture plain. His frontally seated body, shown from his lap to the top of his head, dominates the entirety of the canvas. He is dressed in a zip-up beige sweater, red and blue striped suspenders, and dark blue trousers. He clutches a green toy bus with his left hand. The emphasis of the painting is clearly placed on his face, which is very large and seems to only be connected to his body by a small dark stump of a neck. His eyes, as in many of her portraits, are inescapable in the style of the Byzantine era. Their huge blue irises stare intently back at the viewer but his exact feelings are left unclear. His body is painted in a realistic way in which Betty uses gradients to shows the transitions between light and shade. The background, however, is abstracted with random blue and white brushstrokes that form a sort of halo around his head. The portrait provides an intriguing image of childhood, a time of innocence and mystery. Betty’s obvious interest in the sitter gives her painting a relatable quality that any parent can understand while also distancing viewers from her singular interaction with her son.

Lane painted alongside artists like Jackson Pollock during the emerging era of abstract expressionism. Her realistic paintings were sometimes overlooked. In retrospect, however, the creative vitality and insightfulness of her work shines through. Her willingness to be different and to achieve an intimate, and slightly unnerving, glimpse into her subjects proves to be the legacy of such a skilled painter and independent woman.

COLLECTIONS

Cape Cod Museum of Art, Dennis, MA
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY (The Blizzard, 1941)
National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington, D.C.
The Phillips Collection, Washington, D.C. (St. Peter's Square, 1937, Tam, 1931)

CHRONOLOGY

1907  Born in Washington, D.C.
1928  Travels to Paris and studies under L’Hote
1929  Returns to Falls Church, Virginia for Christmas for parents
1930  Show for Phillips Memorial Gallery, Washington D.C.
1931  Married Gerald Noxon
1936  Birth of son
1946  Moved back to United States and then Canada
1948  Settled in Brewster on Cape Cod
1951  Divorced
1952  Teacher at Miss Portor's School in Farmington, Conneticut for 14 years
1965  Retired from full time teaching
1996  Passed away on March 24th at age 89

BIBLIOGRAPHY

1. Betty Lane: Painting a Life. Cape Museum of Fine Arts: Dennis, Massachusetts. 1997.
2. Davenport, Ray. Davenport’s Art Reference. The Gold Edition.
3. Dunbier, Lonnie Pierson. The Artists Bluebook: American Artists 16th Century to March 2005.
4. Falk, Peter Hastings. Who Was Who in American Art. 1999.
5. Lane, Betty. Askart.com. 8/15/05.
6. Lane, Betty. My Life in Art. Transcribed by Leigh Ryan. February 22, 2005.