‘Chipping the Block, Painting the Silk: The Prints of Norma Bassett Hall’

Joby Patterson is an art historian who has specialized in the history of printmaking. As such, she was in a good position to help develop an exhibit centered on a little-known watercolorist, oil painter and wood-block printmaker named Norma Bassett Hall.

Bassett Hall, who was born in Oregon, died in 1957 after a career spent working in Kansas, Europe and finally New Mexico. The exhibit Patterson curated is now up at the Northwest Museum of Arts and Culture.

Bob Keefer, a former colleague of mine from our days on the features team at the Register-Guard in Eugene, wrote about Patterson's work on the Bassett Hall collection for his blog, Eugene Art Talk, when the exhibit first opened at the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art at the University of Oregon in 2014. You can read his article here.

Patterson will be in Spokane on Saturday to talk about her experience researching Bassett Hall, whose art includes scenes from her native Oregon as well as Kansas, the Indian pueblos of New Mexico and Arizona, Scotland and France. The talk will be followed by a guided tour of the museum’s Bassett Hall exhibit. Patterson will also sign copies of her book, “Norma Bassett Hall: Catalogue Raisonne of the Block Prints and Serigraphs.”

When: 2 p.m. Saturday

Location: Northwest Museum of Arts and Culture, 2316 W. First Ave., in the Eric A. Johnston Auditorium and Norma Bassett Hall Exhibition Gallery

Cost: $10, suggested donation

Info: www.northwestmuseum.org

Above: Old Sycamore, 1942, color woodblock print