Norman Bluhm 2022 by Miles McEnery Gallery

BEYOND THE END NORMAN BLUHM IN THE S

By Zachary Ri er

“He [the artist] must be quite aware of the obvious fact that art never improves, but that the material of art is never quite the same.”

T.S. Eliot once remarked that no artist generates their meaning alone. Rather, the fullness of their work becomes intelligible only once its relationship to the past is sorted through. For the artist, cultivating this “historical sense,” as Eliot calls it, is necessary if they want to engage with tradition as more than just a rote process of bestowal and reception. To be an active participant in tradition is to understand how the past shapes the contours of the present—how it informs our sense of what feels necessary, and what seems possible.

Beginning in the 1970s, and a er more than two decades of experimentation and accomplishment, Norman Bluhm arrived at an idiom of gestural abstract painting entirely his own. The timing was just right for Bluhm, but exactly wrong as far as the critical consensus was concerned. Particularly in America, there were few who took notice of Bluhm’s innovations, and even fewer who saw the signiﬁcance in them. A ention was elsewhere: Conceptual art, Pop art, Minimalism and even Color Field painting were all considered more noteworthy—more historically important— than the continued elaboration of gestural abstraction. Undeterred by the winds of recognition and success blowing hard against him, Bluhm continued to develop the grammar of his painting.

To understand how the 70s paintings became possible for Bluhm, it is necessary to take stock of how his art, and his life, had taken shape up to that point. With the end of World War II came the end of Bluhm’s service in the United States Air Force in 1945 as well, and rather than return to Chicago and resume his architecture studies, Bluhm opted for Europe, living brieﬂy in Florence and then, for the be er part of a decade, in Paris, from 1947-56. These years were formative: Bluhm was immersed in a vibrant post-war milieu of artists and intellectuals, from Jean Cocteau and Jean-Paul Sartre, to fellow expatriates Joan Mitchell and Sam Francis (with whom he shared a studio). His work from this period strikes one now as something of a precursor to the more mature work he would start making closer to the time he relocated to New York, in 1956. Still, what was already clear in this work was the importance that drawing from life, particularly the nude female form, had for Bluhm. In the years immediately following his arrival in New York Bluhm produced paintings that are rich with the movement of their making, but which also show a real sophistication of structure: angular bursts of color across the canvas work as anchor points for the eye as it tracks Bluhm’s brush.

As the 1950s gave way to the 60s, so too did Bluhm’s all-over compositions begin to give way to more linear, more graphic, more selective ways of structuring his paintings. In works like Hell’s Bell (1962) and Iron Horse (1964) we can see large spaces of primed white canvas le bare and then flanked, encircled by sweeps of his brush with quick, assured movements—as though the influence of Jackson Pollock had been worked through, and Bluhm’s more natural affinity for Franz Kline and Willem de Kooning had risen to the surface. The paintings he made through the 60s put progressively more emphasis on volume and curvilinear form as the basis for composition, and those forms were put down with an increasingly more streamlined pale e of pastel blues and pinks, of bright yellows and deep, direct greens, and with a healthy application of black and white for good measure. Just as Bluhm was expanding his visual language, he, along with other painters still commi ed to some form of abstract expressionist painting, like his friends Mitchell and Francis, was being derisively referred to as a second-generation practitioner of that style. Such a label implied that painting in this way was an exhausted pursuit, and that no further

discovery—no meaningful discovery at least—was worth making. As we can now see, and with the added beneﬁt of hindsight, Bluhm was on the verge of roundly disproving that.

II.

In 1970 Bluhm and his family le New York City for the town of Millbrook in upstate New York. The city was replaced by the countryside, and Bluhm was ready to leave his exploration of freeform, all-over compositions behind in favor of more sinuous, more sensuous, ways of constructing space. Speaking in 1987 about this very period, Bluhm emphasized the expanded role that nude drawing had assumed for him before and a er the move to Millbrook:

“I began to insert the nude form into the pictures. [...] I was interested in closed and open forms and the way one form defeated another. The gesture around the closed form—I ﬁrst saw it at the Cloisters [Museum] in tapestries. Groups of ﬁgures were connected by directional marks, such as the crossing lances.”

Norman Bluhm, Hell’s Bell, 1962, Oil on canvas

83 7⁄8 x 72 inches, 213 x 183 cm

Bluhm was no longer invoking the body solely through the act of painting (the way his paintings had previously ﬁgured the movement of his body or the sweep of his arm in paint). Rather than be a mere reference point outside of the work, something which the work summons to one’s mind during the process of looking, the body provided a language of rhythm, of compositional structure, that Bluhm could use to dramatically expand his visual repertoire.

This development was not immediate, nor did it take place in the space of a single canvas. Bluhm worked through it. In Philomela (1972), we see snaking stretches of violet interlocking with a collar of black that encloses the bo om half of the canvas, eﬀectively framing loose drips and spla ers of paint. Bluhm articulates the outline of one violet expression as though he were se ing the silhoue e of a reclining nude. There is a kind of loose entanglement of shape that circles the painting’s open and relatively capacious middle area, where swi articulations of the brush, seemingly unmodiﬁed, stand out. In Crustadéle (1976) and Milkmaid (1977) we can see a development in Bluhm’s compositions that resulted in denser spaces, where awkward and tense folds of color are pressed up against one another. Particularly in Milkmaid, where pastels of yellow and pink weave into and overlap with each other, we can get a sense for how these paintings seem to be working themselves out in real time, as though their composition was provisional, tentative, still to be determined by some internal law.

Although Bluhm was no stranger to painting at a grand scale—regularly doing so across several canvases for a single work—as he painted through the 70s he began to emphasize horizontality in a dramatic fashion, particularly in multi-canvas works. Untitled, Studies in Blue, White, Gray, (1975) is a potent expression of this emphasis: stretching across four canvases to measure twenty feet long and, by comparison, only an intimate four feet tall, the painting wrestles together so much of what Bluhm had been working through in relatively smaller canvases up to that point. Fluid forms with sharp contours; a complex and multi-polar composition that seems to burst with improvisation; zones of ﬂat, unmodulated color that are delicately accented with whips and spla ers of paint; formlessness and its inverse. This painting has the restlessness that comes not just from form itself, but from a sense one gets that ideas are being thought through, examined, tried and tested with paint on canvas.

As Bluhm continued to utilize multi-canvas paintings as a way to expand the sheer size that his dramatic acts of form could play out in, the space within the paintings largely remained ﬂat and two-dimensional. Though this was consistent with the prior twenty or so years of painting that he had done, it too would soon be challenged. In Ice Blue (1978) and Viper Lady (1979) our eyes no longer shu le from side to side—instead they move round and round as billowing shapes, now rippling together, enclose centers of solid color marked once again with the quick, assured strokes of his brush, in each instance resembling the top half of a heart. Are we looking upward, past clouds and then to the heavens, or downward into the deep recesses of some bo omless pool of blue?

III.

The signiﬁcance of the 70s for Bluhm’s art can be seen by looking backwards at what preceded it, but also forward at what was to come. His paintings from the 70s marked a watershed in his drive to bring a romanticism of the body into Abstract Expressionism, and the work that followed, in the 80s and 90s, would take this focus further, to extreme and o en challenging ends. Though his late work became evermore idiosyncratic with reference, and radical in how space is constructed, the 70s remain the pivotal years, the ones which saw Bluhm paint using the lessons of the living tradition he was part of, only to move beyond them into a space of genuine invention.

Endnotes

1. Eliot, T.S. “Tradition and the Individual Talent.” The Selected Prose of T.S. Eliot, edited by Frank Kermode, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, New York, 1975, 39.

2. Salzillo, William. “Conversation with the Artist.” Norman Bluhm: Works on Paper 1947–1987, Hamilton College, Clinton, 1987, 11.

Zachary Ri er is a writer based in New York. His writing has appeared in The Brooklyn Rail and Hyperallergic.

Henri Did It, 1972

Oil on canvas

96 x 116 inches

243.8 x 294.6 cm

Untitled, 1974

Acrylic, pastel on canvas

48 x 38 inches

121.9 x 96.5 cm

Hard Frost, 1975

Oil on canvas

32 x 116 inches

81.3 x 294.6 cm

Untitled, Studies in Blue, White, Gray, 1975

Oil on canvas

48 x 240 inches

121.9 x 609.6 cm

Crustadéle, 1976

Oil on canvas

96 x 84 inches

243.8 x 213.4 cm

Millbrook Blues, 1976

Oil on canvas

84 x 96 inches

213.4 x 243.8 cm

Untitled, 1976

Acrylic, pastel on paper

24 x 108 inches

61 x 274.3 cm

60 x 112 3⁄4 inches

152.4 x 286.4 cm

Milkmaid, 1977

Oil on canvas

Coral Dream Girl, 1978

Oil on canvas

89 x 76 inches

226.1 x 193 cm

Ice Blue, 1978

Oil on canvas

76 x 106 inches

193 x 269.2 cm

Mermaid’s Delight, 1978

Oil on canvas

76 x 106 inches

193 x 269.2 cm

Sooty Lady, 1978

Oil on canvas

76 x 106 inches

193 x 269.2 cm

Viper Lady, 1979

Oil on canvas

77 x 107 inches

195.6 x 271.8 cm

CHRONOLOGY

1920

Born March 28 in Chicago, IL to Henry Bluhm and Rosa Goldstein.

1925 - 1929

Lives in Florence, Italy with his mother and his younger brother, William, while his father works on an engineering project in the Soviet Union.

1930 - 1935

The Bluhm family returns to Chicago, IL.

1936 - 1941

Studies architecture at Armour Institute of Technology, Chicago, IL. Mies van der Rohe becomes head of the department in 1938 and Bluhm a ends his ﬁrst classes.

1941

In late December, enlists in U.S. Army Air Corps, along with his brother William, who later passes in action.

1944

Discharged from the U.S. Army Air Corps.

1945

Returns brieﬂy to architectural studies at Armour, then decides to leave the ﬁeld.

1946-47

Moves to Florence, and studies fresco painting at the Accademia di Belle Arti di Firenze.

1947-56

Lives in Paris. Studies at École des Beaux-Arts and Académie de la Grande Chaumiére.

1950

Marries Claude Souvrain, an artist with deep ties to the Parisian art world.

1953

Included in Peintres américains en France at Galerie Craven, Paris.

1956

Divorces Claude Souvrain, and moves to New York, NY.

1957

Rents a studio at 333 Park Avenue South, and exhibits ﬁrst solo show at Leo Castelli Gallery, New York, NY.

1958

Rents a summer house in Springs, on the East End of Long Island, with Michael Goldberg across from Green River Cemetery.

1959

Included in the Carnegie International, Pi sburgh, PA; Whitney Museum Annual, New York, NY; and Documenta II, Kassel, Germany. He is also included in exhibitions at galleries in Los Angeles, CA and Milan, Italy, and in a group show at Leo Castelli.

1960

Meets Cary Ogle, who was working at Staempﬂi Gallery on East 77th Street, and spends summer in Paris, France and uses Joan Mitchell’s studio on rue Frémicourt. He is included in numerous surveys of contemporary art at American museums, most notably Sixty American Painters at the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, MN. He exhibits his second solo show at Leo Castelli, New York, NY.

1961

Marries Cary Ogle at Shirley Kaplan’s mother’s house in Norwalk, CT, in May, followed by an extended honeymoon in Italy. Guests include Frank O’Hara, Mike Goldberg, Patsy Southgate, and Joe LeSueur. He is included in American Abstract Expressionists and Imagists at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, NY. He shows with Elaine de Kooning in a two-person exhibition at Graham Gallery, New York, NY organized by Joan Washburn.

1962

His son David is born. He exhibits a solo show of paintings at David Anderson Gallery, New York, NY.

1963

His daughter Nina is born.

1964

Moves to Paris with his family and paints in a studio owned by Galerie Stadler on rue Nationale.

1965

The Bluhm family returns to New York, NY.

1968

His ﬁrst solo show at Galerie Stadler, Paris, France opens during the 1968 student protests.

1969

First monographic museum show at the Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, of paintings from the 1960s, organized by James Harithas. He leaves New York with his family for Connecticut, but maintains a studio in New York, NY.

1970

He begins showing at Martha Jackson Gallery, New York, NY (David Anderson, director), and has solo shows there in 1970, 1971, 1972 and 1974. The Bluhm family moves to a former winery in Millbrook, NY, and Bluhm sets up a large painting studio in the haylo and drawing studio in the old worker’s quarters.

1972

He is included in the Whitney Annual Exhibition of American Painting.

1973

He exhibits a solo show of recent paintings at Everson Museum of Art, Syracuse, NY, organized by James Harithas. He shows a solo exhibition at the Palazzo delle Prigionie, Venice, Italy, arranged by gallerist Rinaldo Ro a.

1976

He has a solo exhibiton at the Contemporary Art Museum, Houston, TX, organized by James Harithas.

1977

He has a solo exhibition of recent paintings at the Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington DC, organized by Jane Livingston.

1981

He moves to East Hampton, NY where he and Cary build a new house.

1984

Solo exhibition Norman Bluhm: Seven from the Seventies at Staller Center for the Arts, Stony Brook, NY organized by Rhonda Cooper and Terence Ne er. He is included in the exhibition

Action/Precision: The New Direction at the Newport Harbour Museum of Art, Newport Beach, CA, organized by Paul Schimmel, and the exhibition travels to ﬁve other venues.

1986

Joins Washburn Gallery, New York, NY, and exhibits solo shows there in 1986, 1989, 1990, and 1991.

1987

He shows a solo exhibition, Norman Bluhm: Works on Paper, 1947-1987, at Emerson Gallery, Hamilton College, Clinton, NY, organized by William Salzillo, and the exhibition travels to six other venues.

1988

Moves to East Wallingford, VT where Norman and Cary renovate a nineteenth-century farmhouse and build a large new studio.

1992

He begins showing at Galleria Peccolo, Livorno, Italy, and has solo shows there in 1992, 1995, and 1998.

1994

Exhibits solo shows at Ace Gallery, New York, NY and Los Angeles, CA.

1999

On February 3rd, the artist passes at his home in East Wallingford, VT. The Butler Institute, Youngstown, OH exhibits Norman Bluhm: A Tribute Exhibition, organized by Lou Zona and Jim Harithas.

NORMAN BLUHM

Born in Chicago, IL in 1921

Died in East Wallingford, VT in 1999

EDUCATION

1947

École des Beaux-Arts, Paris, France

1946

Accademia de Belle Arte, Florence, Italy

1945

Studies Architecture at Armour Institute of Technology, Chicago, IL

1941–1945

United States Army Air Forces

1936–1941

Studied Architecture with Ludwig Mies van der Rohe at Armour Institute of Technology, Chicago, IL

SOLO EXHIBITIONS

2022

Miles McEnery Gallery, New York, NY

2020

“Norman Bluhm: Space, Time Continuum,” Hollis Taggart, New York, NY

“Norman Bluhm: Metamorphosis,” The Newark Museum of Art, Newark, NJ

2019

“Norman Bluhm: The 70s,” Hollis Taggart, New York, NY

2015

“Norman Bluhm: Divine Proportion,” Christie’s Private Sales, New York, NY

2012

“Norman Bluhm’s Architecture of Desire,” 499 Park Avenue and Hines, New York, NY

2011

“Norman Bluhm: Paintings 1967-1974,” McClain Gallery, Houston, TX

“Norman Bluhm: Paintings 1967-1974,” Lore a Howard Gallery, New York, NY

2010

“Norman Bluhm: A Retrospective of Works on Paper 1948-1998,” McClain Gallery, Houston, TX

“Norman Bluhm: A Retrospective of Works on Paper 1948-1998,” Galleria Il Gabbiano, Rome, Italy

2009

“Norman Bluhm: Gestural Structures 1960-1965,” Kunsthandel Wolfgang Werner, Berlin, Germany

“Norman Bluhm: A Retrospective of Works on Paper 1948-1998,” Jacobson Howard Gallery, New York, NY

2008

“Norman Bluhm: Large-Scale Works on Paper,” James Graham & Sons, New York, NY

2007

“The Late Paintings of Norman Bluhm,” Station Museum of Contemporary Art, Houston, TX

“Norman Bluhm: Selected Works from 1976-1989,” Manny Silverman Gallery, Los Angeles, CA

2005

“Norman Bluhm, Works on Paper from the 70s, 80s, and 90s,” James Graham & Sons, New York, NY

“Norman Bluhm, Three Paintings,” JG | Contemporary, New York, NY

2002

“Norman Bluhm, Drawings,” Worcester Art Museum, Worcester, MA

“Ideal Abstraction, 1955-1965, Norman Bluhm and Karl Benjamin,” Gary Snyder Fine Arts, New York, NY

2000

“Opere su carta 1948-1999,” Padiglione d’Arte Contemporanea, Milan, Italy

1999

“Norman Bluhm, A Tribute Exhibition,” The Butler Institute of American Art, Youngstown, OH

1998

“Works from the 1950’s and 1960’s,” Galleria Peccolo, Livorno, Italy

1996

“Opere 1993-1995,” Studio d’arte Zanole i, Milan

“12 Works on Paper,” Marist College, Poughkeepsie, NY

1995

“Opere 1993-1995,” Galleria Peccolo, Livorno, Italy

Galleria Blu, Milan, Italy

1994

Ace Contemporary Exhibitions, Los Angeles, CA

Ace Contemporary Exhibitions, New York, NY

1992

“Works on paper, 1967-1991,” Galleria Peccolo, Livorno, Italy

The Anderson Gallery, Buﬀalo, NY

1991

“Works from the 1960’s,” Washburn Gallery, New York, NY

Hiram Butler Gallery (with James Surls and Robert Creeley), Houston, TX

1990

“Works from the 1950’s,” Washburn Gallery, New York, NY

“Selected Works, 1954-1960,” Manny Silverman Gallery, Los Angeles, CA

1989

Riva Yares Gallery, Sco sdale, AZ

Washburn Gallery, New York, NY

1988

Galerie Stadler, Paris, France

1987

“Norman Bluhm, Works on Paper, 1947-1987,” Fred L. Emerson Gallery, Hamilton College, Clinton, NY; traveled to the Ball State University Art Gallery, Muncie, IN; Allentown Art Museum of the Lehigh Valley, Allentown, PA; The Arkansas Art Center, Li le Rock, AK; McNay Museum, San Antonio, TX; University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ; Buscaglia-Castellani Art Gallery of Niagara University, Niagara Falls, New York

“Poem Prints, Norman Bluhm and John Yau,” Cone Editions, New York, NY

1986

Washburn Gallery, New York, NY

Zolla-Lieberman Gallery, Chicago, IL

1985

Herbert Palmer Gallery, Los Angeles, CA

1984

The Fine Arts Center Gallery, State University of New York, Stony Brook, NY

1982

Galerie Stadler, Paris, France

1977

Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.

1976

Contemporary Art Museum, Houston, TX

Robinson Gallery, Houston, TX

1975

Galerie Stadler, Paris, France

1974

Martha Jackson Gallery, New York, NY

Vassar College Gallery of Art, Poughkeepsie, NY

Palazzo delle Prigioni Vecchie, Venice, Italy

Galleria Il Cerchio, Milan, Italy

Galleria Ro a, Milan, Italy

1973

Everson Museum of Art, Syracuse, NY

1972

Martha Jackson Gallery, New York, NY

Galerie Stadler, Paris, France

1971

Martha Jackson Gallery, New York, NY

J. L. Hudson Gallery, Detroit, MI

1970

Galerie Stadler, Paris, France

Martha Jackson Gallery, New York, NY

1969

The Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.

1968

Galerie Stadler, Paris, France

1967

“Poem-Paintings by Frank O’Hara and Norman Bluhm,” Loeb Student Center, New York University, New York, NY

1965

Galerie Anderson-Mayer, Paris, France

1964

Galerie Smith, Brussels, Belgium

1963

Galerie Semiha Huber, Zurich, Switzerland

American Gallery, New York, NY

Galerie Anderson-Mayer, Paris, France

1962

David Anderson Gallery, New York, NY

1961

Galleria Notizie, Turin, Italy

Holland-Goldowsky Gallery (with Larry Rivers), Chicago, IL

Graham Gallery (with Elaine de Kooning), New York, NY

1960

Leo Castelli Gallery, New York, NY

1959

Galleria del Naviglio, Milan, Italy

1958

Paul Kantor Gallery, Los Angeles, CA

1957

Leo Castelli Gallery, New York, NY

SELECT COLLECTIONS

Ackland Art Museum, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC

Addison Gallery of American Art, Phillips Academy, Andover, MA

Albright-Knox Gallery, Buﬀalo, NY

Allentown Art Museum of the Lehigh Valley, Allentown, PA

Arkansas Art Center, Li le Rock, AK

Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto, Canada

Ball State University Museum of Art, Muncie, IN

Birmingham Museum of Art, Birmingham, AL

Jack S. Blanton Museum of Art, Austin, TX

Bowdoin College Museum of Art, Brunswick, ME

Butler Institute of American Art, Youngstown, OH

Castellani Art Museum, Niagara University, NY

Centre Nationale d’Art Contemporain, Paris

Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk, VA

Connecticut College, New London, CT

Cooley Art Gallery, Reed College, Portland, OR

Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.

Dallas Museum of Art, Dallas, TX

Dayton Art Institute, Dayton, OH

Denver Art Museum, Denver, CO

Dillard University Fine Arts Gallery, New Orleans, LA

Everson Museum of Art, Syracuse, NY

Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University Art Museums, Cambridge, MA

Grey Art Gallery, New York University Art Collection, New York, NY

Guild Hall, East Hampton, NY

High Museum of Art, Atlanta, GA

Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, D.C.

The Jewish Museum, New York, NY

Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY

The Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center, Vassar College, Poughkeepsie, NY

The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY

Sidney Mishkin Gallery, Baruch College, NY

MIT List Visual Arts Center, Cambridge, MA

Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, CA

Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, San Diego, CA

Museum of Fine Arts, St. Petersburg, FL

The Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY

National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, Australia

National Museum of Wales, Cardiﬀ, Wales

Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO

Neuberger Museum of Art, Purchase College, State University of New York, Purchase, NY

Newark Museum, Newark, NJ

The Parrish Art Museum, Southampton, NY

The Phillips Collection, Washington, D.C.

Phoenix Art Museum, Phoenix, AZ

Princeton University Art Museum, Princeton, NJ

Rocky Mountain College, Billings, MT

Smith College Museum of Art, Northampton, MA

Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C.

University Gallery, University of Massachuse s, Amherst, MA

University of Arizona Museum of Art, Tucson, AZ

University of Iowa Museum of Art, Iowa City, IA

University of Kentucky Art Museum, Lexington, KY

Utah Museum of Fine Arts, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT

The Weatherspoon Art Museum at The University of North Carolina at Greensboro, NC

Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY

Worcester Art Museum, Worcester, MA

Published on the occasion of the exhibition