JOHN BLOOM: CLOSE TO HOME FIGGE ART MUSEUM COPYRIGHT MATERIAL JOHN BLOOM: CLOSE TO HOME August 25, 2018–January 13, 2019 © 2018 Figge Art Museum Figge Art Museum 225 West Second Street | Davenport, IA 52801 563.326.7804 www.figgeartmuseum.org Published in conjunction with the exhibition John Bloom: Close to Home at the Figge Art Museum, August 25, 2018-January 13, 2019 Cover image: Summer Evening, 1936, oil on Masonite, Private collection Title page: John Bloom, circa 1940, Courtesy of the Mississippi Fine Arts Gallery COPYRIGHT MATERIAL JOHN BLOOM: CLOSE TO HOME August 25, 2018–January 13, 2019 EXHIBITION SPONSORS Sue Quail The Reeg Group at R W Baird Published with funds from the William D. and Shirley J. Homrighausen Endowment for Publications FIGGE ART MUSEUM | DAVENPORT, IOWA COPYRIGHT MATERIAL County Fair, 1934 2 COPYRIGHT MATERIAL JOHN BLOOM: CLOSE TO HOME In 1950, John Vincent Bloom (1906-2002) completed County Fair (page 2). Inspired by the fair held in DeWitt, Iowa, the painting includes a crowd watching a horse race with farm fields and a train in the background. An onlooker blocks a young boy’s view, while in the distance a mother struggles to drag her child to the outhouse. The local subject matter, stylized figures, vibrant color palette, and humorous vignettes all distinguish the painting as a work by John Bloom. Understandably, his artwork has become a source of pride and nostalgia for area residents. Many distinctive qualities of Bloom’s artwork can be traced back to his boyhood, while his training at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, his time with Grant Wood Study for County Fair, 1930s and work as an industrial designer offer insight into his motivations and his progression as an artist. Bank.2 Bloom spent his days swimming at Crystal Lake, In many ways, DeWitt is the archetypal small hiking and fishing with his father and brothers and, Midwestern community. Located a little more than 20 much to his dismay, attending St. Joseph’s Catholic miles north of Davenport, the town is surrounded by School.3 His experiences as a boy inspired many of rich Iowa farmland. When Bloom was born in 1906 his works, including After Church (page 4) in which DeWitt had about 1500 residents.1 He was part of a a young John Bloom, dressed in green, attempts prominent family; his father, John Vincent Bloom Sr., to escape a brood of gossips blocking the arched was a banker and later the president of DeWitt Savings doorway of St. Joseph’s Catholic Church.4 3 COPYRIGHT MATERIAL After Church,1934 4 COPYRIGHT MATERIAL Rabbit in Cornfield, 1920 Bloom’s boyhood drawings convey his sense of subject. As a teenager, he cut animals out of wood humor and reflect his burgeoning artistic talent. with his scroll saw and he later produced stylized Repurposed memo pads and bank ledgers are filled woodcarvings of cats, cows and other animals.7 with characters from the Sunday funnies, cartoons Beginning as a young man, Bloom kept a diary of his making fun of schoolmasters and numerous animal daily activities. As an adult he continued to record drawings.5 Drawn when Bloom was just 14, Rabbit his days and would constantly sketch things he saw in Cornfield exhibits a decorative quality in its corn around town.8 He was fascinated with observing as stalks and in the line work of the rabbit (above). He well as recording, and he used these sketches years, entered similar drawings in the county fair where and sometimes decades, later as inspiration for his they won numerous awards.6 Animals were a favorite best-known compositions. 5 COPYRIGHT MATERIAL In 1924, Bloom moved to Davenport to attend St. Ambrose College (now University). While at St. Ambrose, he also took art classes at the Tri-City Art League and at the Davenport Municipal Art Gallery (the predecessor to the Figge Art Museum). From 1926 to 1930, Bloom attended the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, where he trained in drawing, composition, anatomy and color theory. While in Chicago, he had the opportunity to see work by Paul Cézanne and Henri Matisse at art galleries like Chester Johnson on Michigan Avenue and at the Art Institute.9 Painted in 1937, Bloom’s Picking Weeds (page 14) demonstrates the impact of such artists on his style. The reduction of forms, segments of color and visible brush strokes, attest to Cézanne’s influence on Bloom. The painting’s focus on a farmer at work affirms the later influence of Regionalism.10 Bloom refined his observational drawing skills at the Art Institute.11 Examples of his line drawings from this period have an elegant and lyrical sensibility. In a nude from 1928, Bloom captured the essentials of a woman’s form in a mere five minutes (page 7). Toiling, 1935 6 COPYRIGHT MATERIAL Untitled (seated nude), 1928 These drawings represent his interest in the human painting. Toiling (page 6) is a more finished and stylized figure and his skill at rapid sketching. As Bloom carving which references relief sculpture and the labor wrote, “Quick sketches are the ideal way to get the themes prevalent in New Deal art. After concluding his essential gesture for [sic] haven’t time to get involved studies at the Art Institute, Bloom returned to DeWitt in details.”12 Around this time he also created several where from 1930 to 1932 he listed his activities as small figural woodcarvings. The figures are rough and paintings and drawing “freelance.” He spent the summer blocky, but they reflect Bloom’s desire to represent of 1932 at Stone City.13 the human form in sculpture as well as in drawing and 7 COPYRIGHT MATERIAL The Stone City Art Colony and School, 1932 John Bloom: back row, second from right; Isabel Scherer: middle row, second from right Stone City Art Colony was founded in 1932 by Grant work, attended classes, socialized in Stone City, Iowa, Wood (1891-1942), Edward Rowan (1898-1946) and swam in the Wapsipinicon River.14 Wood invited and Adrian Dornbush (1900-1970) as a place where Bloom, who he had met at an art competition, to attend artists could work cooperatively and advance the values the Colony. But with no money and having exhausted of Regionalism. As an art movement, Regionalism loans from his father to attend the Art Institute, Bloom was focused on local, rural and often agrarian subject couldn’t afford it. As a compromise, he worked as a matter represented in a realistic way, in opposition to groundskeeper in exchange for free tuition.15 Bloom met the urban and Modernist styles of artists in New York his future wife and fellow artist, Isabel Scherer (later and elsewhere. During its brief period of existence, the Isabel Bloom) at the Colony.16 This period marked a Colony was an active and exciting place. The students moment of resolve in Bloom’s work, wherein he began sketched, painted, sculpted, critiqued each other’s to concentrate on local and rural subject matter. 8 COPYRIGHT MATERIAL Near Stone City, 1932 9 COPYRIGHT MATERIAL Cattle Loading, 1988 While the Stone City Art Colony only lasted two of high unemployment. New Deal programs were summers, for many it offered a respite from the established to provide jobs and to stabilize the realities of the Great Depression. As Florence economy. The P.W.A.P. (Public Works of Art Project, Sprague (1888-1971), a sculpture instructor at 1933-1934) and later the F.A.P. (Federal Art Project, the Colony wrote, “So art in Iowa went on in spite 1935-1943) provided paid work for artists, resulting of the Depression. The Colony forgot that there in the creation of many public works of art. Bloom was such a thing.”17 Yet, the struggle to find work worked on the Iowa State University Library Murals was a real and constant concern during this period under Grant Wood and was independently awarded 10 COPYRIGHT MATERIAL commissions for murals at the Tipton and DeWitt Swedish artist Anders Zorn (1860-1920), the palette post offices. Stylistic and technical elements present uses a limited amount of base colors mixed in varying in many of his paintings are attributable to this period. amounts to create cohesive tones and hues. The colors Bloom’s easel paintings and murals have a flat surface are earthier versions of straight primaries and include quality without the glossy finish usually associated with extra pale cadmium red, ivory black, zinc white, mellow oil paint. In Bloom’s notes referencing his time working ochre and sometimes viridian green, and cerulean blue. with Wood, there is a recipe for a flattening preparation These colors, along with the flat finish, can be seen in and a description of Zorn’s Palette.18 Named after the many of Bloom’s paintings. 11 COPYRIGHT MATERIAL popular Art Deco style is clear in the rounded forms and repetitive design. His rendering communicates the mass and contour of the object cleanly and effectively. For decades Bloom continued to make his own art in his free-time, until his retirement allowed him more freedom.22 A sketchbook from the 1940s in which mechanical drawings intermingle with sketches of people around Davenport demonstrates the two sides of Bloom’s artistic life.23 During this period he recorded many scenes along the Davenport riverfront. After years of relative obscurity, Bloom’s work was championed in the 1980s by David Losasso (1948-2015), a local art enthusiast and owner of the Mississippi Fine Arts Gallery located in the Village of East Davenport. Their association resulted Design for Kitchen Drawer, 1946 in a proliferation of prints, numerous exhibitions and several corporate mural commissions.