Biography

Peter Blume's parents emigrated from Russia to New York in 1912 to escape retribution for his father's anti-Czarist activities. He was a student at the Educational Alliance, the Beaux-Arts Institute of Design and the Art Students League, where he was a classmate and friend of Alexander Calder. He had his own studio by the time he was 18 and became a part of the New York art scene, interacting with Alfred Stieglitz, Charles Demuth, Hart Crane, Marcel Duchamp, Buckminster Fuller and Constantin Brancusi. He acquired patrons including Abby Aldrich Rockefeller, Alfred H. Barr, Jr. and Edgar Kaufmann. He achieved national recognition with a first prize at the 1934 Carnegie Institute International Exhibition for "South of Scranton". But his anti-Fascist work "Eternal City" (1937) was derided by critics, who perhaps found the green-faced Mussolini emerging as a jack-in-the-box a bit too much for polite company. His reputation remained dormant for years after World War II, emerging only after a belated retrospective organized for the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts by Robert Cozzolino in 2014.

Critical Analysis

Blume was a master draftsman, and his large paintings were typically preceded by drawings or cartoons of portions of the work. His style combined aspects of Precisionism and Surrealism in an unmistakable way, and his works never failed to provoke a reaction -- positive or negative. Reaction to "South of Scranton" was largely positive. The painting resulted from a road trip that Blume took from Scranton to Charleston, South Carolina, during which he claims to have lost track of exactly where he was, with the result that the painting combines different locales in a rather jarring fashion. But his work was also grounded in reality. Not only are the details of Scranton industry carefully rendered; even the sailors flying through the air were a sight he saw on a ship in the Charleston harbor, where German sailors were exercising on the ship's deck. Nonetheless a work like "The Rock" could be derided -- both at the time of its release and years later in response to the PAFA retrospective. Perhaps it is always the fate of Surrealists to be only partially understood.

Murals

• Rome, Georgia - U.S. Courthouse and Post Office: The Two Rivers
• Geneva, New York - Post Office: Vineyard
• Geneva, New York - Post Office: Vineyard
• Canonsburg, Pennsylvania - Post Office: Beatty's Barns

References

1. Anne R. Fabbri, Being in with the In Crowd, Broad Street Review December 9 (2014).
2. Edward M. Epstein, Bloom and Drang: Peter Blume's Eclecticism, Art Critical January 17 (2015).
3. How Peter Blume Painted His Personal Reality of Hope (Big Think).
4. Peter Blume (Wikipedia).
5. Peter Blume (Museum of Modern Art).
6. Peter Blume (Smithsonian American Art Museum).
7. Andrea Kirsh, Peter Blume at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Art Blog December 26 (2014).
8. Peter Blume papers, 1870-2001 (Archives of American Art).
9. Roberta Smith, Peter Blume, 86, Painter of Dreamlike Narratives, New York Times December 1 (1992).
10. Peter Blume: Nature and Metamorphosis (Wadsworth Atheneum).
11. Peter Blume: Nature and Metamorphosis (Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts).
12. Jacob Feige, Peter Blume: Nature and Metamorphosis, Title Magazine April 5 (2015).
13. Mario Naves, "Peter Blume: Nature and Metamorphosis" at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, Philadelphia, The New Criteron February (2015).
14. Peter Blume: The Rock (Art Institute of Chicago).
15. South of Scranton (Art Institute of Chicago).
16. Ken Johnson, Vivid Visions, Unsettling Still, New York Times January 15 (2015).