Bernard Goldberg Fine Arts

Provenance:

Private Collection, California

Oscar Bluemner was born in Prenzlau, Prussia (now Germany) in 1867. He trained and practiced as an architect in Berlin prior to immigrating to Chicago in hopes of securing work for the World’s Fair of 1893. By 1900, he had become a naturalized U.S. citizen and resided in New York where he was gainfully employed as an architect. Initially a student of the fine arts, Bluemner continued to create paintings in his free time during these years. By late 1907, however, his desire to paint began to eclipse his interest in architecture, and by 1912, he abandoned the latter profession to concentrate all of his energies on visual art. Determined to launch a successful painting career, Bluemner frequented New York galleries to acquaint himself with the new developments in modern art. In particular, he was impressed by the work of the French Impressionists and Post-Impressionists.

His decision to give up architecture coincided with his budding friendship with the pioneering American modernist Alfred Stieglitz. Proprietor of the famed 291 Gallery, Stieglitz encouraged innovative styles and provided a venue for artists to discuss artistic philosophies and practices. Integrated into the 291 Gallery’s important circle of American painters, sculptors and photographers, Bluemner was given his first solo exhibition there in 1915.

Bluemner abandoned architecture, yet its presence resonates throughout his oeuvre. Depopulated landscapes, usually depicting places in his home state of New Jersey, occupied by somewhat isolated, manmade structures are his signature theme. For Bluemner, though, it was color rather than form that served as the primary vehicle for the expression of his moods and his inner consciousness. His strong interest in color theory led him to create abstracted pictorial compositions based upon intersecting planes of vibrant primary colors. When asked to explain his love for combining elements of color theory with wrought architectural forms, he once said, “Landscape painting speaks to the soul like a poem, or music, more intimately than any other kind of painting. I present a surprising vision of landscape by the daring new use of colors.” Ultimately, the artist’s reputation relies heavily on his talent as a colorist; dubbing himself “The Vermillionaire,” Bluemner especially relished the voluptuousness of red hues.

Situated closely to the frontal plane of the pictorial space, the structures in Red Shed and Telephone Pole are abstracted into their basic geometric components. The reddish-orange hues of the shed punctuate the otherwise gray color scheme and find repetition in the rainbow-shaped formation in the sky and in the cluster of rocks to the right of the building. The telephone pole divides the composition in half, its thin verticality echoed by the forms of the smokestack and the chimney, while the organic shape of the tree and its canopy off set the rectilinear organization. The buildings and the surrounding landscape are markedly grounded, making the work less an experiment in formalist concerns than an attempt to capture the atmospheric conditions of the actual scene. The warm pink shade of the sky, which softly contrasts with the cool gray of the poles, suggests an early morning sunrise. Exemplifying many of Bluemner’s most distinctive characteristics, Red Shed and Telephone Pole ultimately demonstrates his skill as a colorist in evoking sensations and moods.