Bill heads to Paris this October 11–13 as a featured speaker at an international symposium on the women artists of early Provincetown printmaking, the same circle whose work he has spent decades reviving.
Symposium: Drawn Together: Trailblazing American Women Artists in Belle Époque Paris
Dates: October 11–13, 2026
Venue: Reid Hall, 4 rue de Chevreuse, 75006 Paris
Bill’s sessions:
- Lecture: “Ada Gilmore, Dolly McMillen and the Women Artists of Provincetown”
- Exhibition: “Provincetown Prints”. 16 portraits of Provincetown Printers
- Live demonstration of the white-line printmaking process
PROVINCETOWN, Mass. — September 14, 2026 — Provincetown’s own master of the white-line color woodcut, Bill Evaul, will be a featured speaker and presenter at an international symposium on American women artists, organized by the Columbia Global Center in Paris.
“As Director of Reid Hall, I have conducted extensive research on the history of 4 rue de Chevreuse, particularly during the period when it housed the American Girls’ Art Club (1893–1914). We are currently organizing a symposium on the Provincetown Printers, who met and worked in Paris from 1906 to 1914. Your articles on many of these artists, as well as your work on white-line woodcuts — including your own artistic practice — has significantly advanced our understanding of this movement.”
Brunehilde Alice Biebuyck, Director, Columbia Global Center’s Reid Hall
About the Symposium
Drawn Together: Trailblazing American Women Artists in Belle Époque Paris explores a circle of influential American women artists who worked in Paris at the turn of the twentieth century. At the center of this transatlantic network were Maud Squire, Ethel Mars, Ada Gilmore, Mildred “Dolly” McMillen, Blanche Lazzell, Agnes Weinrich, and Edna Boies Hopkins.
As members of the American Woman’s Art Association in the Latin Quarter, these artists exhibited on both sides of the Atlantic and attracted significant critical attention. Their artistic achievements, professional networks, and mentorship influenced other artists in Paris, including Margaret Patterson, Ada Gilmore, Blanche Lazzell, Mildred McMillen, and Juliette Nichols. Alice Schille was another influential member of the Association working on paper who exhibited alongside these women in both Paris and Provincetown.
With the outbreak of the First World War, the artistic, personal, and intellectual relationships they had cultivated in Paris found new expression in Provincetown, Massachusetts. Between 1915 and 1920, members of this circle played a pivotal role in the formation of the Provincetown Printers, one of the most celebrated printmaking collectives in early twentieth-century America.
By bringing their intertwined lives and creative legacies into focus, the symposium offers a rare opportunity to explore a vibrant chapter of transatlantic cultural history.
Evaul’s Role at the Symposium
Evaul will give a talk on artists Ada Gilmore and Mildred “Dolly” McMillen, examining their art and their role in founding the Provincetown Printers, the group that produced the unique white-line print medium. The discussion will include their life together as partners, their art-school training in Chicago, their travels to Paris, and their eventual settling in Provincetown. Evaul will also participate in panel discussions on the wider group, its significance to the art world then and now, and the future of the medium.
As part of the symposium, Evaul will exhibit several of his woodcut portraits of the Provincetown Printers and give a live demonstration of the white-line printmaking process.
A brief video of Evaul making a Provincetown print is available here.
Selected Woodcut Portraits
Portrait of Ada Gilmore. White-line color woodcut, from Evaul’s series on the Provincetown Printers.
Portrait of Dolly McMillen. White-line color woodcut, from Evaul’s series on the Provincetown Printers.
Additional high-resolution photos of the Provincetown Printers portrait series are available upon request.
About Bill Evaul
Bill Evaul is a painter and printmaker who has worked in Provincetown since his arrival in 1970 as a Fellow at the Fine Arts Work Center. He attended Syracuse University School of Art and holds a BFA from Pratt Institute, with graduate seminars at the Whitney Museum of American Art.
As an educator, Evaul periodically presents lectures and workshops at institutions including The Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Art, Philadelphia, PA; The Georgia Museum of Art, Athens, GA; The Pacific Design Center, West Hollywood, CA; The Sunrise Art Museum, Charleston, WV; Syracuse University School of Art, Syracuse, NY; and The Zimmerli Art Museum, as well as numerous local arts and historical institutions on Cape Cod.
Evaul’s work is held in the public collections of The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; The Library of Congress; The Provincetown Art Association & Museum; The Cape Cod Museum of Art; The Jane Voorhees Zimmerli Art Museum, Rutgers University; and The Printmaking Workshop, NYC, among others.