Watercolor

Energetic abstract expressionist watercolor painting of large black and orange splatters done by Norman Bluhm in 1962. Signed and dated in lower left corner. Hung in a black and gold frame with a white mat.

Norman Bluhm was born in Chicago's South Side in 1921, although as a child he lived in Italy for eight years. Bluhm initially studied the Bauhaus approach to architecture while also spending his spare time learning to fly. After the attack on Pearl Harbor during World War II, Bluhm became a B-Pilot and flew 44 missions over North Africa and Europe before getting wounded and sent home. After the war, he decided to discard his career as an architect and moved to Paris where he attended art classes at the Académie de la Grande Chaumiére and Ecole des Beaux Arts. In 1956 he returned to New York and began a lifelong successful career as an Abstract Expressionist painter. He was part of a vibrant and glamorous "movement", socializing with a handful of art-world titans and collaborating with the curator and poet Frank O'Hara to create a legendary collection of "Poem Paintings." An important figure in the heyday of Abstract Expressionism, Bluhm enjoyed substantial critical success during his lifetime. His work is included in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art , the Whitney and the Museum of Modern Art. However he found greater solace in painting than in fame or academic theorizing about art. Gradually he moved farther and farther from New York, eventually settling in a still corner of Rural Vermont. Bluhm was in thrall with painting itself not fame or public relations. For him the studio was the center of the art universe and whether in Paris, New York, or Vermont he allowed himself to be led by its constant demands. Norman Bluhm died at his home in East Wallingford, Vermont on February 3, 1999.

H 23.5 in. x W 18.5 in.

H 10.25 in. x W 14.5 in.