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. ...

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