Arnold Blanch (June 4, 1896 – October 3, 1968), was born and raised in
Mantorville, Minnesota
Mantorville is a city in Dodge County, Minnesota, United States. The population was 1,197 at the 2010 census. It is the county seat of Dodge County. Founded in 1854, the city is one of the oldest in Minnesota.
Mantorville shares a school sy ...
. He was an
American modernist painter, etcher, illustrator, lithographer, muralist, printmaker and art teacher.
Life
His modernist paintings are associated with the
Social Realist movement. Blanch met his first wife the painter
Lucile Blanch
Lucile Esma Lundquist Blanch (December 31, 1895 – October 31, 1981) was an American artist, art educator, and Guggenheim Fellow. She was noted for the murals she created for the U.S. Treasury Department's Section of Fine Arts during the Great ...
, (born Lucile Lundquist), at the
Minneapolis School of Art
The Minneapolis College of Art and Design (MCAD) is a private college specializing in the visual arts and located in Minneapolis, Minnesota. MCAD currently enrolls approximately 800 students. MCAD is one of just a few major art schools to offer ...
.
After the end of World War I, Lucile and Arnold Blanch moved to New York City and enrolled at the
Art Students League of New York
The Art Students League of New York is an art school at 215 West 57th Street in Manhattan, New York City, New York. The League has historically been known for its broad appeal to both amateurs and professional artists.
Although artists may stu ...
, studying with
John Sloan
John French Sloan (August 2, 1871 – September 7, 1951) was an American painter and etcher. He is considered to be one of the founders of the Ashcan school of American art. He was also a member of the group known as The Eight. He is best known ...
,
Robert Henri
Robert Henri (; June 24, 1865 – July 12, 1929) was an American painter and teacher.
As a young man, he studied in Paris, where he identified strongly with the Impressionists, and determined to lead an even more dramatic revolt against A ...
,
Kenneth Hayes Miller
Kenneth Hayes Miller (March 11, 1876 – January 1, 1952) was an American painter, printmaker, and teacher.
Career
Born in Oneida, New York, he studied at the Art Students League of New York with Kenyon Cox, Henry Siddons Mowbray and with Willia ...
and
Boardman Robinson
Boardman Michael Robinson (1876–1952) was a Canadian-American painter, illustrator and cartoonist.
Biography
Early years
Boardman Robinson was born September 6, 1876 in Nova Scotia. He spent his childhood in England and Canada, before mov ...
. Eventually by 1923 they settled in Woodstock, New York, which was then beginning to become an important
art colony
An art colony, also known as an artists' colony, can be defined two ways. Its most liberal description refers to the organic congregation of artists in towns, villages and rural areas, often drawn by areas of natural beauty, the prior existence o ...
for young artists. By the 1920s Blanch began to achieve recognition for his paintings and lithographs of landscapes and still lifes. During the 1930s in New York, Blanch worked for the
Section of Painting and Sculpture
The Treasury Section of Painting and Sculpture was a New Deal art project established on October 16, 1934, and administered by the Procurement Division of the United States Department of the Treasury.
Commonly known as the Section, it was rena ...
on various mural projects, including ''The Harvest'' at the
United States Post Office
The United States Postal Service (USPS), also known as the Post Office, U.S. Mail, or Postal Service, is an independent agency of the executive branch of the United States federal government responsible for providing postal service in the U. ...
in
Fredonia, New York
Fredonia is a village in Chautauqua County, New York, United States. The population was 9,871 as of the 2020 census. Fredonia is in the town of Pomfret south of Lake Erie. The village is the home of the State University of New York at Fredonia ( ...
.
[ ''See also:'' ]
In 1939, Blanch remarried and for many years he lived in
Woodstock, New York
Woodstock is a town in Ulster County, New York, United States, in the northern part of the county, northwest of Kingston, NY. It lies within the borders of the Catskill Park. The population was 5,884 at the 2010 census, down from 6,241 in 2000 ...
with his second wife
Doris Lee
Doris Emrick Lee (February 1, 1905 – June 16, 1983) was an American painter known for her figurative painting and printmaking. She won the Logan Medal of the Arts from the Chicago Art Institute in 1935. She is known as one of the most successfu ...
, also an artist. Blanch taught at the
Art Students League
The Art Students League of New York is an art school at American Fine Arts Society, 215 West 57th Street in Manhattan, New York City, New York. The League has historically been known for its broad appeal to both amateurs and professional artists ...
's branch in Woodstock for several decades from the 1930s until his death in the late 1960s. His paintings are in the permanent collections of the
Metropolitan Museum of Art
The Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York City, colloquially "the Met", is the largest art museum in the Americas. Its permanent collection contains over two million works, divided among 17 curatorial departments. The main building at 1000 ...
; the
Museum of Modern Art
The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues.
It plays a major role in developing and collecting modern art, and is often identified as one of ...
in New York City; the
Cleveland Museum of Art
The Cleveland Museum of Art (CMA) is an art museum in Cleveland, Ohio, located in the Wade Park District, in the University Circle neighborhood on the city's east side. Internationally renowned for its substantial holdings of Asian and Egyptian ...
; the
Whitney Museum of American Art
The Whitney Museum of American Art, known informally as "The Whitney", is an art museum in the Meatpacking District and West Village neighborhoods of Manhattan in New York City. It was founded in 1930 by Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney (1875–1942), ...
; the
Smith College
Smith College is a Private university, private Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts Women's colleges in the United States, women's college in Northampton, Massachusetts. It was chartered in 1871 by Sophia Smith (Smith College ...
Museum of Art; the
Sheldon Museum of Art
The Sheldon Museum of Art is an art museum in the city of Lincoln, in the state of Nebraska in the Midwestern United States. Its collection focuses on 19th- and 20th-century art.
History
Sheldon Art Association
In 1888, The Sheldon Art Assoc ...
; th
Woodstock Artists Association and Museum (WAAM) one of the oldest American artists' organizations, and dozens of others.
Among Blanch's pupils was the painter and printmaker
Bertha Landers
Bertha Mae Landers (1911–1996) was an American painter and printmaker.
A native of Winnsboro, Texas, where she was raised, Landers graduated from Sul Ross State Teachers College in 1931 with a bachelor's degree in art. She studied at the Color ...
.
Solo exhibitions
* Dudensing Galleries, New York City, 1928
* Dudensing Galleries, New York City, 1930
* Walden-Dudensing Gallery, Chicago, 1930
* Ulrich Gallery, Minneapolis, 1930
* Beaux Arts Gallery, San Francisco, 1930
* Rehn Galleries, New York City, 1932
* Rehn Galleries, New York City, 1935
* Associated American Artists, New York City, 1940
* Associated American Artists, New York City, 1945
* Krasner Gallery, New York City, 1960's
* Rudolph Galleries, Woodstock, NY and Coral Gables, Fla., 1950s & 1960s
Awards and honors
* Scholarship, Art Students League, New York City, 1916
* Norman Waite Harris Silver Medal, Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois, 1929
* Anne Bremer First Prize, Art Association Purchase Prize, San Francisco Art Association, San Francisco, California, 1931
* Fellowship, John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, 1933
* Beck Gold Medal, Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 1938
* Third Prize, Annual Carnegie International Exhibition of Paintings, Carnegie Institute, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
* Prize, Domesday Press Competition in Juvenile Book Illustration, New York City, 1945
* First Prize and two Honorable Mentions for designs, National Ceramic Exhibition, Syracuse Museum of Fine Arts, Syracuse, New York, 1949
* First Prize at the National Ceramic Exhibition, 1949 and 1951
* Purchase Prize, Art USA, New York, 1959
* Purchase Prize, Mary Washington College of the University of Virginia, 1959
* Best Painting in Show, Albany Art Institute, 1960
* Prize, Landscape Painting, Silvermine Guild of Artists, 1961
* Ford Grant, 1964
References
External links
Archives of American Art 1963 Arnold Blanch interviewSmithsonian ArchivesAskart
{{DEFAULTSORT:Blanch, Arnold
1896 births
1968 deaths
People from Mantorville, Minnesota
Students of Robert Henri
20th-century American painters
American male painters
Modern painters
American muralists
American illustrators
Art Students League of New York faculty
Art Students League of New York alumni
Artists from Minnesota
People from Woodstock, New York
Section of Painting and Sculpture artists
20th-century American printmakers
20th-century American male artists