WILLIAM H. LITTLEFIELD
Born in 1902, William H. Littlefield had education and interest in art, which was sparked while attending Harvard University. His first formal study was with Adeline Wolever, a Boston School traditional painter. After graduating from Harvard in 1924, Littlefield spent the next four years in Paris, where he shared a studio with Stanley William Hayter. Bill returned home in 1929 and settled in Falmouth, Massachusetts. During the early 1930’s, the Cape Cod landscape inspired much of his work. He participated in the First Biennial at the Whitney Museum in 1932 and was included in a 1936 exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art.
Littlefield co-founded the Cape Cod Art Association in 1947 and first exhibited at the Provincetown Art Association (PAAM) in 1949. In the fall of 1951, he began his study with Morris Davidson and with Hans Hofmann in Provincetown during the summer of 1952, when his work turned more toward Abstract Expressionism. Littlefield started writing a weekly art criticism column for the Falmouth Enterprise in 1959. He continued to exhibit regularly at PAAM until his death in 1969. Written and submitted by James Bakker, Guest Curator of the 2006 Littlefield Retrospective at the Cape Cod Museum of Art and the Provincetown Art Association and Museum.
Courtesy RoGallery
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