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Berta Walker is honored to co-curate with Gene Tartaglia, Curator of Exhibitions at MHVH, a special exhibition at the Mary Heaton Vorse House in support of the creation of the recently-commissioned life-size sculpture of Mary Heaton Vorse by Penelope Jencks. Entitled “Mary’s Friends: An Artist's Reunion,” this historic exhibition honors both of these creative women by featuring many Provincetown artists who knew Mary Heaton Vorse from her 1907 arrival in Provincetown through her death in 1966 and also featuring several sculptures by Penelope Jencks. This exhibition continues the fundraising efforts launched in 2021 by Provincetown Public Art Foundation who commissioned the sculpture. In collaboration with Provincetown Arts Society, the Mary Heaton Vorse life-sized bronze will be permanently installed in front of the recently restored Vorse House in Provincetown.

Mary Heaton Vorse (1874-1966) was a journalist, labor organizer, war correspondent and arts patron, co-founding the Provincetown Players, and donating her old fishermen’s tackle house on the Bay in 1915 as a home for their plays. Penelope Jencks is an internationally renowned sculptor, commissioned over the years to create numerous portraits including those of Eleanor Roosevelt, Serge Koussevitsky, Leonard Bernstein, Aaron Copeland, and Seiji Ozawa.

We learn from Josephine Del Deo in her book about Ross Moffett, "The halcyon days of Provincetown painters had already begun when in 1914, war broke out in Europe.” American modernist artists overseas needed to leave when the war began. Charles Hawthorne had met many of them while visiting Oliver Chaffee in France and thus he urged them “to return home and join his Paradise at the Cape tip.” At that time Mary’s house became a refuge for many of the artists and writers, including Eugene O’Neill.

In her book "Time and the Town" Mary Heaton Vorse writes about the fascinating and very different schools of art in Provincetown in the early 1900’s. She wonders aloud, "How is anybody going to write about the painters of Provincetown? Who can deal with this complicated and complex subject? To me it is as enormous and as difficult to handle as would be the love life of whales…. Yet, I have lived all my life among painters. When I was young, I even hoped to be a painter myself.” She continues to discuss the relationship of the art and artists and the two different schools of art, Traditionalists and Modernists. “The profound gulf between the two schools in Provincetown is so deep that the respective members fight freely together, pound tables, and even heads...The old school shouts the loudest, but the new school flies its nose highest.”

Both schools will be represented in the fifty-some works of art in this exhibition from artists affiliated with Vorse and the Provincetown Players of 1915 continuing through Provincetown Masters still painting today. Those include Salvatore Del Deo, Robert Henry, Paul Resika, and Brenda Horowitz. Highlights include the unique Moffett painting Still Life with Lilacs, 1929, reproduced in Josephine Del Deo’s history of Ross Moffett. This painting reflects both the Figurative and Modernist schools. Also included is a 1985 statuesque portrait painting of Geraniums by Paul Resika, featured in the catalog of his Artist’s Choice Museum Show in NYC. Smaller, major pieces include a painting by the colorful actress and artist Kyra Markham, an original performer with the 1916 Provincetown Players and an important 1940s abstract watercolor by Blanche Lazzell who is now considered to be the first non-objective female artist in America. Additionally, adding to this celebration of Vorse, viewers will meet many other renowned artists including Reynolds Beal, William Boogar, Dorothy Lake Gregory, Tod Lindenmuth, Ione Walker, Oliver Chaffee, Charles Hawthorne, Agnes Weinrich, Marsden Hartley, Karl Knaths, Lucy L’Engle, and Selina Trieff.

Art Historian and founding member of the Provincetown Public Art Foundation Sam Tager says of Mary Heaton Vorse. “She did more to encourage artists, writers, poets, journalists, and bohemians to spend time in Provincetown than anyone else. As one of the nation’s foremost labor journalists and war correspondents, Vorse participated in and documented the Lawrence Textile Strike, the Great Steel Strike, and the Harlan County War. In 1915 she was appointed a delegate by the New York Women’s Suffrage Party, representing over 150,000 members at the Women’s Peace Congress held at the Hague. Interestingly, President Theodore Roosevelt vehemently opposed the delegation, calling Vorse and her followers, ‘cowards who sought peace with no regard to righteousness’. Vorse served as editor of The Masses, a socialist political magazine, and was a charter member of the Liberal Club and the Heterodoxy Club. She supported her three children by writing books and magazine stories, and her last book, Time and the Town, a Provincetown Chronicle, remains one of the truly great books ever written about Provincetown.”

Sculptor Romolo Del Deo, co-founder and President of Public Art Foundation and long-time admirer of Penelope Jencks’ sculpture writes: “The Trustees of the Foundation created this commission because in our midst is one of the great portrait sculptors of America.”

“Launching this exhibition is incredibly exciting!" says gallerist Berta Walker. She has represented the history of American Art as seen through the eyes of Provincetown for over 33 years in her Gallery. Her ties are deep, ranging back to her grandparents (a writer and a composer) who arrived in town in 1915 and became close friends with Vorse. Walker’s own mother, Ione Gaul, came to town that year as a newborn. In 1943, She and husband Hudson Walker, began spending summers bringing along their three daughters (one of whom was Berta). The Walkers were among the founders of the Fine Arts Work Center. Berta Walker speaks from a sense of personal history when she says of Provincetown, “Today, it remains a haven for originality, free speech and free choice. And, yes, over 125 years later, it still resonates with the Boston Globe’s 1916 observation: ‘And thus it comes about that the spot where the Pilgrims first landed is the spot where one may look for the last word in literature and art.’"

What a joy it is for all involved, to witness the commitment and achievements of Mary Heaton Vorse and be able to welcome Mary’s HUGE presence back to Provincetown. Her welcome will be accomplished through the continuing generous donations from the public reinforcing the original thinking and action of Ken Fulk and his years of restoring the Mary Heaton Vorse House, and the creative commission made by the Provincetown Public Art Foundation to place Penelope Jencks’ life-sized bronze portrait, prominently standing in the doorway of her home in the center of Provincetown, greeting all as she always did. In Mary’s own words in the early 1900s, “Art was the Universal refreshment in Provincetown,” and, affirms Berta Walker, “it still is!”

To visit the exhibition email: gene@provincetownartssociety.com