Robert frederick Blum

Robert Blum was one of the most prominent artists of his day. Active in progressive artistic circles and frequently traveling and working abroad, he came into contact with a great number of the modern stylistic directions of the late nineteenth century. His work shows the influence of French Impressionism as well as the tonal styles of James McNeill Whistler and the Spanish painter, Mariano Fortuny.

Blum's vibrant and atmospheric canvases provided the groundwork for the full acceptance of Impressionism in America. Blum was talented in a number of different media, and his pastels and etchings in particular helped to make his reputation, and are extremely well regarded today.

In Cincinnati, Ohio, where he spent his youth, Blum was exposed to the artistic resources of the city. He studied at the McMicken School of Design and at the Ohio Mechanics Institute, where in the fall of 1874, he attended a special night class taught by Frank Duveneck. However, it was during a visit to the Philadelphia Centennial Exposition in 1876 that Blum received his first exposure to modern art. He was drawn to the work of the Spanish-Romano School, especially that of Fortuny and of the fashionable Italian portraitist, Giovanni Boldini.

After studying for nine months at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Blum returned to Cincinnati where he worked as an illustrator and experimented with watercolor. In Venice in 1880, he again encountered Duveneck and the circle of Americans that surrounded him. He also came into contact with Whistler whose work exerted a strong influence on him, especially on his etchings and pastels.

Returning to New York City in the 1880s, Blum became president of the Society of Painters in Pastel, and along with his colleague in the organization, William Merritt Chase, he helped to increase the public awareness of the pastel medium. Receiving an assignment from "Scribner's Magazine" in 1890, Blum traveled to Japan, a country which had held his fascination for some time. Blum spent two years in Japan, working in a variety of media and creating a group of evocative portraits of women in pastel. He also kept a diary and wrote a three-part magazine article about the experience.

From 1893 to 1903, Blum's career reached its pinnacle. He continued to paint subjects from his travels in Europe and Japan, received important commissions to create murals for the old Mendelssohn Glee Club Hall and the New Amsterdam Theater, and painted the view from the window of his Grove Street apartment in New York.

The majority of the works in Blum's estate were given to the Cincinnati Art Museum.