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Jeanne Bultman, 90
Modern art activist
Jeanne Lawson Bultman, 90, one of the last pivotal participants in the American abstract expressionist art scene of the 1950s and 1960s, died at her summer cottage in Provincetown on Dec. 18.
Jeanne spent her last year in a cottage next to the studio of her late husband, Fritz Bultman, surrounded by some of her art collection and her devoted caregivers.
She was an active volunteer, delivering Meals on Wheels to seniors in her distinctive 1973 beige Jeep Wagoneer until she was in her late 80s. In her earlier years she was instrumental in the creation of the Cape Cod National Seashore, defending First Amendment rights and the founding of the Fine Arts Work Center.
From the time of her marriage to abstract expressionist Fritz Bultman (one of the 28 prominent New York School artists dubbed “The Irascibles” in the seminal 1950 article and historic photograph published by Life magazine) on Christmas Eve 1943 at St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York, until 2007, Jeanne Bultman shepherded her husband’s artistic career; and, after his death on July 20, 1985, his legacy. While she considered herself as a mere bystander, not an artist, she was a noted stained glass maker whose largest commission (1981) was the 54-foot-long Bultman Stained Glass Mural at Kalamazoo College consisting of more than 3,000 pieces of glass duplicating the adjacent collages created by her husband.
The New York art scene was a sharp contrast to her small-town Midwestern roots where she came from one of the founding families of Hastings, Neb. Her only artistic endeavor there consisted of singing in the choir of the First Presbyterian Church. After her graduation from high school in 1936 she set off for New York.
In New York she graduated from the Traphagen Fashion School in 1939, completing an eight-month course in clothing construction. Soon after her graduation the statuesque blonde landed roles modeling and dancing in the chorus of nightclub revues in Chicago, Montreal and New York.
She credited Russian painter Igor Pantuhoff with playing a pivotal role in transforming her from a showgirl into a vital participant in the emerging American abstract expressionist scene. Pantuhoff, on the rebound in the summer of 1941 from Lee Krasner, who had dumped him for Jackson Pollock, loaned her his convertible so she could drive to Provincetown for a stint as an artist’s model in Hans Hofmann’s studio. In 1935 Hofmann had come to Provincetown to open a summer painting academy. Over the years his school attracted such artists as Lee Krasner, Myron Stout and Giorgio Cavallon. It was there the 24-year-old Jeanne Lawson met Fritz Bultman.
Writer Donald Windham, best man at their wedding, recalls that Louella Brach Lawson, Jeanne’s widowed mother, was dubious of her free-spirited daughter’s choice of a mate, yet helped the couple buy the land in Provincetown across from Hofmann’s studio in 1944, sending them the $1,000 she had put aside for her daughter’s traditional Hastings’ society wedding. The couple soon transformed the ramshackle one-room building atop the overgrown hill into a year-round home. In 1945 the artist Tony Smith, whom Fritz had met in Chicago at the New Bauhaus in 1937, designed and helped construct Bultman’s distinctive multi-sided vaulted studio on the property.
In an art world dominated by strong egos, Jeanne Bultman was masterful at empowering her husband to stay true to his vision. Early in her marriage it was she who finally called a halt to the free-loading of playwrights, actors and writers who camped out in their tiny Cape Cod home so that Fritz could get back to being an artist.
In the early 1950s Fritz and Jeanne would return from Provincetown to New York, forging one of the most successful partnerships in New York’s modern art scene. Jeanne’s Midwestern pluckiness served to offer Fritz, who suffered from illness throughout his life, the stability he required to function as an artist. She worked as a seamstress and model for fashion designer Charles James to make ends meet. As Fritz did not drive, she was his chauffeur and his rock. When he obtained a Fulbright Fellowship in 1964-1965 to study in Paris, she studied at the Cordon Bleu. which led her to a job working as an assistant to cookbook author Michael Field.
In 1963 during the height of the civil rights struggles, the Bultmans enlisted the support of a group of prominent New York artists, curators and critics, including Robert Motherwell and Dore Ashton, to create an important modern art collection for a small black college in Jackson, Miss., Tougaloo College, at a time when the color line precluded blacks from visiting white museums.
Jeanne is survived by two sons, Anthony Frederick Bultman IV, of Covington, La., and Ellis Johann Bultman, of New Orleans, La.; five grandsons, Emerick Bultman, of New Orleans, Grayson and Daniel Hirshhorn Bultman, of Metairie, La., and Gwyther and Tristan Bultman, of New York City; and two great-grandchildren, Samantha and Andrew Bultman, of Metairie, La.
The Gately-McHoul Funeral Home in Provincetown is in charge of the funeral arrangements. A Funeral Mass was held at St. Peter’s Church in Provincetown on Monday. Interment followed at the Pine Grove Cemetery in Truro. In lieu of flowers, make donations to: Fine Arts Work Center Inc., 24 Pearl St., Provincetown, MA 02657; Council on Aging, Grace Gouveia Building, 26 Alden St., Provincetown, MA 02657; St. Peter the Apostle Church, 11 Prince St., Provincetown, MA 02657.
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Ernest J. Carteris, 72
Genevieve Patrick, 96
Romain Roland, 81
Lawrence Souza Sr., 66
Matthew P. Souza, 21
Juliana Diogo Dutra, 96
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Dec 25th, 2008