Our history

The present-day Sail Loft Art Collective reimagines the historic Provincetown women's art club, The Sail Loft Club, founded in 1916. At that time, the original Sail Loft Club was created specifically as a social and intellectual hub for women artists. The original club met in a space where sailmakers stitched canvas designed to catch the wind. In that same loft, women gathered to share their art and ideas - to support one another and build momentum. But the Sail Loft was not the only grassroots community organization supportive of artists and writers in that timeframe - others include Group 7, the Nautilus Club, and the UpAlongs. These groups built on the work of Martha Dewing Woodward and her partner, Laura Louise Johnson, who had established the Cape Cod School of Drawing and Painting in 1896 (Lawless, 2011). Notably, this predates Charles Hawthorne’s well-known Cape Cod School of Art; Woodward and Johnson’s venture was the very first formal art school operating in Provincetown.

To mark the 110th anniversary of the original Sail Loft Club, present-day Sail Lofters Nika Feldman and Elspeth Slayter will research and record the history of the Outer Cape's women and non-binary creators. The focus of this project is on the following questions:

(1) Who were the members of the original Sail Loft Club (and other local women’s art clubs)?

(2) What did those people make?

(3) Why did they make what they did? 

Please get in touch if you have information about any of the following artists:

CCSDP = Cape Cod School of Drawing and Painting

Nautilus = Nautilus Club

SLC = Sail Loft Club

  1. Bacon, Peggy – SLC

  2. Bean, Caroline – SLC

  3. Boxell, Althea – Nautilus

  4. Brigadier, Anne

  5. Brown, Florence Bradshaw – Nautilus

  6. Burlingame, Sheila – Group 7

  7. Caliga, Elizabeth Howland – SLC

  8. Chaffee, Mrs. Melzar – SLC

  9. Curtis, Ida M. – SLC

  10. Davis, Bertha – SLC

  11. Ferguson, Nancy – SLC

  12. Gilmore, Ada – Group 7

  13. Gregory, Dorothy Lake – Group 7

  14. Hackett, Mary – Group 7

  15. Hawthorne, Marion C. – SLC

  16. Hebert, Emily – Nautilus

  17. Houstis, Louise L. – SLC

  18. Howella, Alice – SLC

  19. Johnson, Antoinette Thackwell – SLC

  20. Johnson, Laura Louise – CCSDP

  21. Kelly, Arianna – SLC

  22. L’Engle, Lucy – Nautilus

  23. Lazzelle, Blanche – Group 7 and SLC

  24. Levy, Beatrice – SLC

  25. Mears, Helen Farnsworth – SLC

  26. Monroe, Sara – SLC

  27. Morrow, Julie Mathilde – SLC

  28. Morse, Jessie C. – SLC

  29. Paxton, Elizabeth – SLC

  30. Pfeiffer, Hope Voorhees – Group 7

  31. Pfeiffer, Mab – Nautilus

  32. Patrick, Hilda Winslow – Nautilus

  33. Rayner, Ada – Nautilus

  34. Ried (sp?), Bertha – SLC

  35. Rogers, Mrs. A. – SLC

  36. Scudder, Annette – SLC

  37. Tarvers, Mary “Molly” (Silva) – Nautilus

  38. Tudor, Rosamond – SLC

  39. Weinrich, Agnes

  40. Woodward, Martha Dewing – CCSDP

  41. Zorach, Marguerite – SLC

References of interest from research-to-date:

Ahrens, N. (1997). Provincetown: The art colony: A brief history and guide. Cape Cod Pilgrim Memorial Association.

American Art News. (1917, September 15). Provincetown news notes. American Art News, 15(36).

American Art News. (1919, August 16). American Art News, 17(37), 1–12.

American Art News Co. (1919, August 16). American Art News, 17(37), 1–8.

Brook, A. (1923). The purity of Provincetown. The Arts, 4(1), 49.

Feldman, N. (2024). Research notes on Provincetown sail lofts and studio spaces [Unpublished research document].

Krahulik, K. C. (2005). Provincetown: From Pilgrim landing to gay resort. New York University Press.

Lawless, D. (2011). Provincetown: A history of artists and renegades in a fishing village. Arcadia Publishing.

Lazzell, N. B. (2023). Reflections on the early Provincetown art scene (My Daily Art Display, Ed.). (Original work written 1915/1918).

Lindenmuth, T. (1923). Fishermen [Artwork print]. The Arts, 4, 52.

Moffett, R. (1989). Art in narrow streets: The first thirty-three years of the Provincetown Art Association. Cape Cod Pilgrim Memorial Association. (Original work published 1964).

New York Times. (1919, August 17). Art notes: Sail Loft Club exhibition. The New York Times, Section 3, p. 35.

Provincetown History Preservation Project. (1907). The first scrapbook of the Nautilus Club. Town of Provincetown Archives.

Smith, N. P. (1927). A book about the artists. Colonial Press.

Storer, A. (2023, March 22). Discovering an early generation of Provincetown artists. The Provincetown Independent. https://provincetownindependent.org/arts-minds/2023/03/22/discovering-an-early-generation-of-provincetown-artists/

Theriault, J. (2014). Bohemian lifestyle takes root in Provincetown 1914. Town of Provincetown History Timeline.

The Arts. (1923). Reflections on the Beachcombers, the Sail Loft Club, and the Provincetown art scene. The Arts, 4(1), 51.

The Provincetown Advocate (March 12, 1953). Provincetown History Preservation Project.

The Touchstone. (1919, January). In the Touchstone Galleries: Four Provincetown Painters. The Touchstone, 4(4), 347–348.