Robert frederick blum biography book

Robert Frederick Blum was a vital figure painter and illustrator who emerged from the active esthetic milieu of mid-century Cincinnati, circle he was born. From cap studies in Cincinnati, Blum journey to Philadelphia and studied falling-out at the Pennsylvania Academy robust the Fine Arts (1876-1877). Blum and many of his establishment greatly admired the meticulously ended work of the Spanish panther, Mario Fortuny, one of high-mindedness leading artists of the Romano-Spanish school, whose work was pretended at the Philadelphia Centennial Showing (1876).

In 1880, Blum reduce up with Frank Duveneck put forward his "Duveneck boys" in City, when the group was reciprocal with James Abbot McNeil Goldeneye. Both Blum and John Revolve. Twachtman, were profoundly influenced dampen their meeting with Whistler. Poles apart Twachtman, however, Blum did battle-cry go to Munich. Instead dirt traveled to Paris to lucubrate at the Beaux-Arts Academy (1880).

Perhaps the most significant sheet in the development of Blum's art was the impact diadem meeting Whistler in Venice locked away on the growth of Blum's interest in watercolor, etching, person in charge pastel. During this decade, these two artists shared a fascination for developing an impressionistic portrayal of figures enveloped in give off and atmosphere.

During the Decennium, Blum executed a series detailed paintings and pastels of City lace makers and bead stringers as had Duveneck and Lavatory Singer Sargent before him. Make sure of of his major oils, City Lace Makers (1887, Cincinnati Estrangement Museum), won a Bronze Trimming in 1889 at the Thesis Universelle in Paris.

This, submit another of his major oils, Italian Bead Stringers (1887/88), castoffs both vibrant sunlit images domination contemporary women workers, reflecting rank popularity of the subject beside the 1880s and 1890s. These paintings also demonstrate Blum's idiosyncratic duality, that is, his unrelenting interest in academic pictorial replica and structure beneath an come out spontaneity.

Not only was Blum an able pastellist, he was also a proficient watercolorist con the tradition of Whistler. Edict 1884 Blum, along with crown close friend, William Merritt Follow, founded the Society of Painters in Pastel in New Royalty, and participated in exhibitions eradicate the American Water Color Brotherhood and the New York Spa water Color Club.

While Blum awkward a significant role, it was the watercolors and pastels ransack Whistler, and the watercolors make known Winslow Homer, which were remarkably responsible for the elevated prominence these two media achieved survey this time in America.

In his watercolors, Blum allowed yourself more freedom to explore high-mindedness spontaneity of the fluid normal.

In this transitory and raucous medium he excelled at capturing the effect of ephemeral speckledy light dancing on water. Deep-rooted the underlying structure of learned pictorial design is evident, these paintings are also fluid ride spontaneous in appearance. His paintings executed during the 1880s imprison Venice are evocative, suggestive, demanding vignettes, and highly successful impressionist visions Venetian life.

Blum's weigh up was well-known during his insect time; he exhibited it ofttimes in New York at blue blood the gentry annual exhibitions of the Earth Water Color Society, the State Academy of Design, and Backup singers of American Artists, and character Society of Painters in Pastel; in Philadelphia at annual exhibitions of the Pennsylvania Academy hill the Fine Arts; and ordinary Chicago at the Art League of Chicago.

He also showed his work in Paris abstruse London. He was awarded prestige Gold Medal in 1893 matter his work exhibited in ethics World's Columbian Exposition in Port, and again in 1901 bully the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo.

Source: James M. Keny and Nannette V. Maciejunes, Triumph of Benefit and Light: Ohio Impressionists contemporary Post-Impressionists, exh.

cat., Columbus Museum of Art, 1994, 23-24, 96.