History of Art: Peter Blume

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Peter Blume

Peter Blume

Peter Blume (1906 - 1992) was an American painter (born in Russia) of the magic realism school. He and his family emigrated from Russia to New York City in 1906.

Peter Blume's brand of Surrealism was based on the juxtaposition of disjunctive and unrelated objects and figures, all rendered in an accomplished and painstaking technique that echoes northern European painting of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Blume labored intensively over his paintings, creating many sketches, which explains the relative rarity of large-scale works.

He painted The Eternal City which is a reference to Rome, Italy, as well as The Rock (1944-1948) which depicts the process of rebuilding civilization out of its own destruction.

In 1934 he won the Carnegie International Award with South of Scranton (Metropolitan Museum of Art).