While the artist Hazel Knapp (1908-1995) was outdoors painting breathtaking landscapes in Arlington, Vermont, her mother would describe the surrounding terrain and inform her of viewpoints she could not access from her wheelchair due to having Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease. Knapp, who was entirely self-taught, exhibited a snowy mountain painting in an influential 1939 exhibition at MoMA and almost had a solo show in Gertrude Stein’s Paris apartment after Stein purchased ten of Knapp’s paintings, all due to her participation in the 1933 Southern Vermont Arts Center’s annual summer exhibition.

Although largely unknown, Hazel Knapp produced artwork for SVAC and patrons for over 20 years. Her story reveals the extraordinary career of a prolific woman artist who was disabled and chronically ill. Join guest speaker Bryan Martin to learn about the fascinating life of this local artist who engaged with some of the most prominent figures and institutions of 20th-century American art through SVAC. Martin will also consider why her achievements were left in obscurity.

Bryan Martin is a writer and art critic based in New York City. He works as an editor at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. He is also pursuing an MA in art history at City College where his concentration is on the intersection between disability and outsider art. Find out more about Martin’s work and research interests HERE.

Event image: Hazel V. Knapp, Guardian of the Valley (1938), oil on canvas. Taken from They Taught Themselves: American Primitive Painters of the 20th Century (1942).