Peter Blume (27 October 1906 – 30 November 1992) was an American painter and sculptor. His work contained elements of

folk art Folk art covers all forms of visual art made in the context of folk culture. Definitions vary, but generally the objects have practical utility of some kind, rather than being exclusively decorative. The makers of folk art are typically tr ...

Precisionism Precisionism was a modernist art movement that emerged in the United States after World War I. Influenced by Cubism, Purism, and Futurism, Precisionist artists reduced subjects to their essential geometric shapes, eliminated detail, and often us ...

, Parisian

Purism Purism, referring to the arts, was a movement that took place between 1918 and 1925 that influenced French painting and architecture. Purism was led by Amédée Ozenfant and Charles Edouard Jeanneret (Le Corbusier). Ozenfant and Le Corbusier f ...

, Cubism, and Surrealism.

Biography

Blume, born in Smarhon, Russian Empire to a

Jewish Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...

family, emigrated with his family to

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...

in 1912; the family settled in

Brooklyn Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York. Kings County is the most populous county in the State of New York, and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, be ...

. He studied art at the

Educational Alliance Educational Alliance is a leading social institution that has been serving communities in New York City’s Lower Manhattan since 1889. It provides multi-generational programs and services in education, health and wellness, arts and culture, and c ...

, the

Beaux-Arts Institute of Design The Beaux-Arts Institute of Design (BAID, later the National Institute for Architectural Education) was an art and architectural school at 304 East 44th Street in Turtle Bay, Manhattan, in New York City.Art Students League of New York, establishing his own studio by 1926. He trained with

Raphael Soyer Raphael Zalman Soyer (December 25, 1899 – November 4, 1987) was a Russian-born American painter, draftsman, and printmaker. Soyer was referred to as an American scene painter. He is identified as a Social Realist because of his interest in men ...

and

Isaac Soyer Isaac Soyer (April 26, 1902 – July 8, 1981) was a Russian-born American social realist painter and educator. His art work often portrayed working-class people of New York City in his paintings. Biography He was born as Isaac Schoar on April 26, ...

, exhibited with Charles Daniel, and was patronized by the

Rockefeller family The Rockefeller family () is an American industrial, political, and banking family that owns one of the world's largest fortunes. The fortune was made in the American petroleum industry during the late 19th and early 20th centuries by brot ...

. Blume married Grace Douglas in 1931; they had no surviving children. In 1948, Blume was elected into the

National Academy of Design The National Academy of Design is an honorary association of American artists, founded in New York City in 1825 by Samuel Morse, Asher Durand, Thomas Cole, Martin E. Thompson, Charles Cushing Wright, Ithiel Town, and others "to promote the f ...

as an Associate member, and became a full member in 1956.

Works

An admirer of Renaissance technique, Blume worked by drawing and making cartoons before putting his work on canvas. He received a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1932 and spent a year in Italy. His first major recognition came in 1934 with a first prize for ''South of Scranton'' at a Carnegie Institute International Exhibition. The painting was inspired by a trip across Pennsylvania in an old car that required frequent repair. ''Eternal City'' (1934–1937) was politically charged, portraying Benito Mussolini as a jack-in-the-box emerging from the

Colosseum The Colosseum ( ; it, Colosseo ) is an oval amphitheatre in the centre of the city of Rome, Italy, just east of the Roman Forum. It is the largest ancient amphitheatre ever built, and is still the largest standing amphitheatre in the world t ...

; as a one-man, one-painting exhibition, it excited considerable attention from critics and audiences. This painting was inspired by Blume's trip to Italy which he took as a Guggenheim Fellow in 1932. After the trip from Rome, it took Blume 5 years to create this piece of work. In 1943 when Mussolini was deposed from power, the Museum of Modern Art purchased the artwork for its permanent collection within that same week. Blume 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 ...

of the

U.S. Treasury Department The Department of the Treasury (USDT) is the national treasury and finance department of the federal government of the United States, where it serves as an executive department. The department oversees the Bureau of Engraving and Printing and ...

, painting at least two post office murals, in Geneva, New York, and

Canonsburg, Pennsylvania Canonsburg is a borough in Washington County, Pennsylvania, southwest of Pittsburgh. Canonsburg was laid out by Colonel John Canon in 1789 and incorporated in 1802. The population was 9,735 at the 2020 census. The town lies in a rich coal distr ...

.Park, Marlene and Gerald E. Markowitz, ''Democratic Vistas: Post Offices and Public Art in the New Deal'', Temple University Press, Philadelphia, 1984 p. 84 Blume's works often portrayed destruction and restoration simultaneously. Stones and girders made frequent appearances; ''The Rock'' (1944–1948), today in the collection of the Art Institute of Chicago, was interpreted by its viewers as symbolizing renewal in the wake of

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

. ''Recollection of the Flood'' (1969) depicted the victims of the

1966 Flood of the River Arno in Florence The 1966 flood of the Arno ( it, Alluvione di Firenze del 4 novembre 1966) in Florence killed 101 people and damaged or destroyed millions of masterpieces of art and rare books. It is considered the worst flood in the city's history since 1557. Wi ...

along with restorers at work. ''The Metamorphoses'' (1979) invoked the Greek legend of

Deucalion In Greek mythology, Deucalion (; grc-gre, Δευκαλίων) was the son of Prometheus; ancient sources name his mother as Clymene, Hesione, or Pronoia.A scholium to ''Odyssey'' 10.2 (='' Catalogue'' fr. 4) reports that Hesiod called Deucal ...

and

Pyrrha In Greek mythology, Pyrrha (; Ancient Greek: Πύρρα) was the daughter of Epimetheus and Pandora and wife of Deucalion of whom she had three sons, Hellen, Amphictyon, Orestheus; and three daughters Protogeneia, Pandora II and Thyia. Accordi ...

, who repopulated the earth after a deluge.

References

External links

A finding aid to the Peter Blume papers, 1870-2001, in Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution

* ttp://www.factmonster.com/ce6/people/A0808007.html The Columbia Encyclopediaat factmonster.com
Peter Blume - South of Scranton
{{DEFAULTSORT:Blume, Peter 1906 births 1992 deaths People from Smarhon’ People from Oshmyansky Uyezd Belarusian Jews Jews from the Russian Empire Emigrants from the Russian Empire to the United States American people of Belarusian-Jewish descent 20th-century American painters American male painters National Academy of Design members Art Students League of New York alumni Precisionism Jewish American artists Jewish painters Section of Painting and Sculpture artists Artists from Brooklyn American muralists Beaux-Arts Institute of Design (New York City) alumni 20th-century American male artists Members of the American Academy of Arts and Letters

Biography

Works

References

Further reading

External links