Lucienne Bloch

Last updated
Lucienne Bloch
Archives of American Art - Lucienne Bloch painting The cycle of a woman's life - 1979 (cropped).jpg
Born
Lucienne Bloch

(1909-01-05)January 5, 1909
Geneva, Switzerland
DiedMarch 13, 1999(1999-03-13) (aged 90)
Gualala, California, United States
NationalityAmerican
Education École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts
Known forSculpture, painting, photography
SpouseStephen Pope Dimitroff
Patron(s) WPA, FAP

Lucienne Bloch (1909-1999) was a Swiss-born American artist. She was best known for her murals and for her association with the Mexican artist Diego Rivera, for whom she produced the only existing photographs of Rivera's mural Man at the Crossroads , painted in 1933 and destroyed in January 1934 at Rockefeller Center in New York City. [1]

Contents

Biography

Bloch was born on January 5, 1909 in Geneva, Switzerland. [2] In 1917, the Bloch family emigrated to America. Lucienne attended the École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris at 14, apprenticing with sculptor Antoine Bourdelle and painter Andre Lhote. [3]

In 1929, she pioneered the design of glass sculpture for the Royal Leerdam Crystal Glass Factory in the Netherlands. When Frank Lloyd Wright saw her glass works and spoke with her in New York, he invited her to teach at his architectural school, Taliesin East, where she worked with artist and muralist Santiago Martínez Delgado and other Taliesin fellows.[ citation needed ]

In 1931, Bloch had met and began her apprenticeship with Diego Rivera on his frescoes in New York (1931, 1933) and Detroit (1932). She also formed a close friendship with Rivera's wife Frida Kahlo, and they became each other's companion and confidant. In 1932 she accompanied Kahlo to Mexico when Kahlo's mother became ill. She was also with Kahlo in Detroit when Kahlo had her miscarriage. [4]

A prolific photographer, Bloch contributed many photographs of Rivera and Kahlo to biographical works about them. She took the only existing photographs of Rivera's (controversially) destroyed mural, Man at the Crossroads , in Rockefeller Center Plaza in New York City. [4] She created five portfolios of photographs of Rivera and Kahlo, including photos of Kahlo's paintings in progress, and the artists in New York City, Detroit, and Mexico.[ citation needed ]

Block married fellow artist Stephen Pope Dimitroff (1910-1996) [5] [6] and the couple created murals for a time before Dimitroff became a union organizer in Flint, Michigan. [1]

From 1935 to 1939, Bloch was employed by the WPA/FAP (Works Progress Administration/Federal Arts Project). As a WPA/FAP artist, she completed murals for public buildings, including the House of Detention for Women in New York City, and the Fort Thomas, Kentucky post office. [7]

The Cycle of a Woman's Life, 1936 print Lucienne Bloch - The Cycle of a Woman's Life, 1936.tif
The Cycle of a Woman's Life, 1936 print

The mural for the House of Detention for Women commissioned by the Federal Arts Project was entitled The Cycle of a Woman's Life. It was planned to cover three wall of the 12th-floor recreation room, but only one wall was completed. [8] [9]

She also illustrated numerous children's books, of which the Library of Congress lists:

In 1956 Bloch's prints were included in the exhibition "Women Printmakers" at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. [10]

In 1964 Bloch was interviewed for the Archives of American Art New Deal and the Arts Project now in the Smithsonian Institution. [11]

Bloch died on March 13, 1999 in Gualala, California. [12] Her work is in the National Gallery of Art [13] and The New York Public Library. [14]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Diego Rivera</span> Mexican muralist (1886–1957)

Diego Rivera was a prominent Mexican painter. His large frescoes helped establish the mural movement in Mexican and international art.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Frida Kahlo</span> Mexican painter (1907–1954)

Magdalena Carmen Frida Kahlo y Calderón was a Mexican painter known for her many portraits, self-portraits, and works inspired by the nature and artifacts of Mexico. Inspired by the country's popular culture, she employed a naïve folk art style to explore questions of identity, postcolonialism, gender, class, and race in Mexican society. Her paintings often had strong autobiographical elements and mixed realism with fantasy. In addition to belonging to the post-revolutionary Mexicayotl movement, which sought to define a Mexican identity, Kahlo has been described as a surrealist or magical realist. She is also known for painting about her experience of chronic pain.

<i>Frida</i> (2002 film) 2002 film directed by Julie Taymor

Frida is a 2002 American biographical drama film directed by Julie Taymor which depicts the professional and private life of the surrealist Mexican artist Frida Kahlo.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ernest Bloch</span> Swiss-born American composer (1880–1959)

Ernest Bloch was a Swiss-born American composer. Bloch was a preeminent artist in his day, and left a lasting legacy. He is recognized as one of the greatest Swiss composers in history. As well as producing musical scores, Bloch had an academic career that culminated in his recognition as Professor Emeritus at the University of California, Berkeley in 1952.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tina Modotti</span> Italian-born photographer and actress, active in the USA and Mexico

Tina Modotti was an Italian American photographer, model, actor, and revolutionary political activist for the Comintern. She left her native Italy in 1913 and emigrated to the United States, where she settled in San Francisco with her father and sister. In San Francisco, Modotti worked as a seamstress, model, and theater performer and, later, moved to Los Angeles where she worked in film. She later became a photographer and essayist. In 1922 she moved to Mexico, where she became an active member of the Mexican Communist Party.

<i>Man at the Crossroads</i> 1933 fresco by Diego Rivera

Man at the Crossroads (1933) was a fresco by Mexican painter Diego Rivera. Originally slated to be installed in the lobby of the RCA Building at Rockefeller Center in New York City, the fresco showed aspects of contemporary social and scientific culture. As originally installed, it was a three-paneled artwork. A central panel, depicting a worker controlling machinery, was flanked by two other panels, The Frontier of Ethical Evolution and The Frontier of Material Development, which respectively represented socialism and capitalism.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lola Álvarez Bravo</span> Mexican photographer (1903–1993)

Lola Álvarez Bravo was the first Mexican female photographer and a key figure in the post-revolution Mexican renaissance. Known for her high level of skill in composition, her works were seen by her peers as fine art. She was recognized in 1964 with the Premio José Clemente Orozco, by the State of Jalisco, for her contributions to photography and her efforts to preserve the culture of Mexico. Her works are included in the permanent collections of international museums, including the Museum of Modern Art in New York City.

María Izquierdo was a Mexican painter. She is known for being the first Mexican woman to have her artwork exhibited in the United States. She committed her life and career to art that displayed her Mexican roots, and held her own among famous make Mexican artists such as Diego Rivera, José Clemente Orozco and David Alfaro Siqueiros.

Fanny Rabel, born Fanny Rabinovich, was a Polish-born Mexican artist who is considered to be the first modern female muralist and one of the youngest associated with the Mexican muralism of the early to mid 20th century. She and her family arrived to Mexico in 1938 from Europe and she studied art at the Escuela Nacional de Pintura, Escultura y Grabado "La Esmeralda", where she met and became friends with Frida Kahlo. She became the only female member of “Los Fridos” a group of students under Kahlo’s tutelage. She also worked as an assistant and apprentice to Diego Rivera and David Alfaro Siqueiros, painting a number of murals of her own during her career. The most significant of these is "Ronda en el tiempo" at the Museo Nacional de Antropología in Mexico City. She also created canvases and other works, with children often featured in her work, and was one of the first of her generation to work with ecological themes in a series of works begun in 1979.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Aurora Reyes Flores</span> Mexican painter and muralist (1908–1985)

Aurora Reyes Flores was a Mexican artist, known as a painter and writer, and she was the first female muralist in Mexico and first exponent of Mexican muralism. She also went by the name Aurora Reyes.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lucile Blanch</span> American artist (1895-1981)

Lucile Esma Lundquist Blanch was an American artist, art educator, and Guggenheim Fellow. She was noted for the murals she created for the U.S. Treasury Department's Section of Fine Arts during the Great Depression.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Maxine Albro</span> American painter, muralist, lithographer, mosaic artist, and sculptor(1903–1966)

Maxine Albro was an American painter, muralist, lithographer, mosaic artist, and sculptor. She was one of America's leading female artists, and one of the few women commissioned under the New Deal's Federal Art Project, which also employed Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko, and Willem de Kooning.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mexican art</span>

Various types of visual arts developed in the geographical area now known as Mexico. The development of these arts roughly follows the history of Mexico, divided into the prehispanic Mesoamerican era, the colonial period, with the period after Mexican War of Independence, the development Mexican national identity through art in the nineteenth century, and the florescence of modern Mexican art after the Mexican Revolution (1910-1920).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Elizabeth Olds</span> American printmaker

Elizabeth Olds was an American artist known for her work in developing silkscreen as a fine arts medium. She was a painter and illustrator, but is primarily known as a printmaker, using silkscreen, woodcut, lithography processes. In 1926, she became the first woman honored with the Guggenheim Fellowship. She studied under George Luks, was a Social Realist, and worked for the Public Works of Art Project and Federal Art Project during the Great Depression. In her later career, Olds wrote and illustrated six children's books.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rina Lazo</span> Guatemalan-Mexican artist (1923-2019)

Rina Lazo Wasem was a Guatemalan-Mexican painter. She began her career in mural painting with Diego Rivera as his assistant. She worked with him from 1947 until his death in 1957 on projects both in Mexico and Guatemala. Thereafter, she remained an active painter, better known for her mural works than canvases, although the latter have been exhibited in Mexico and other countries. This has made her one of Guatemala's best-known artists. She was a member of the Mexican muralism movement and criticized modern artists as too commercial and not committed to social causes. She believed muralism would revive in Mexico because of its historical value.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Emmy Lou Packard</span> American visual artist (1914–1998)

Emmy Lou Packard, also known as Betty Lou Packard (1914–1998), was an American visual artist and social activist in San Francisco, California. She was known for her paintings, printmaking, and murals, which were often political.

Cristina Kahlo y Calderón (1908–1964) was the sister of artist Frida Kahlo. Frida painted a portrait of Cristina, titled Portrait of Cristina, My Sister, and Diego Rivera, Frida's husband, also portrayed Cristina Kahlo in his work. Cristina, with whom Rivera had an affair, was painted by Rivera in the nude.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ione Robinson</span> American artist and writer

Ione Robinson was an American artist, writer and socialite. She is most known for her reporting of the Mexican muralist movement, especially episodes on Diego Rivera and David Alfaro Siqueiros, in her book A Wall to Paint on (1946). In this book, she reported also her experiences from the Spanish Civil War, that she witnessed in Barcelona in 1938.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mary Perry Stone</span> American artist (1909–2007)

Mary Perry Stone was an American painter, sculptor, and muralist. She is best known for her social protest artwork. Her archives are held in the Smithsonian's Archives of American Art.

<i>Henry Ford Hospital</i> (painting) 1932 artwork by Frida Kahlo

Henry Ford Hospital is a 1932 oil-on-metal painting by the Mexican artist Frida Kahlo about her experience of delivering a dead male fetus on 4 July at Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit, Michigan, United States, when she was approximately 312 months pregnant. Depictions of childbirth, abortion, or miscarriage are rare in the canon of Western painting, and Kahlo is "one of the only major artists to directly communicate her reproductive grief through visual art." The "bloody and terrifying" painting opened a defining and influential era of Kahlo's career. The painting's first title was The Lost Desire. An alternate title is The Flying Bed.

References

  1. 1 2 Thomas Jr., Robert Mcg. "Lucienne Bloch, Muralist, Is Dead at 90". New York Times. Retrieved 7 September 2024.
  2. "Bloch, Lucienne". AKL Online. Retrieved 7 September 2024.
  3. Rubinstein, Charlotte (1982). American Women Artists: from early Indian times to the present. Boston, MA: Avon. p. 220. ISBN   0380611015.
  4. 1 2 Frasco Phd, Elizabeth. "Walls Call: Women Artists of the NYC WPA in Mexico, 1929–1936". Woman's Art Journal. 43 (2): 3–16. Retrieved 7 September 2024.
  5. "OBITUARY -- Stephen Dimitroff, Muralist, Framer". SFGate. Retrieved 2018-01-30.
  6. "Lucienne Bloch". Living New Deal. Retrieved 7 September 2024.
  7. Mogul, Jon. "The Cycle of an Artist's Life". The Wolfsonian. Florida International University. Retrieved 7 September 2024.
  8. "Bloch, Lucienne". Benezit Dictionary of Artists. 2011. doi:10.1093/benz/9780199773787.article.B00020960 . Retrieved 7 September 2024.
  9. Belasco, Daniel (2024). Women artists in midcentury America: a history in ten exhibitions. London: Reaktion Books. p. 212. ISBN   9781789148435.
  10. "Oral history interview with Lucienne Bloch, 1964 August 11". Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution. Retrieved 7 September 2024.
  11. "Lucienne Bloch". RKD Research. Retrieved 7 September 2024.
  12. ""The Cycle of a Woman's Life"". NYPL Digital Collections. Retrieved 7 September 2024.