About the artist:

Oscar Bluemner, known for his expressive use of color and Cubist influenced works, was born in 1867 in Hanover, Germany. After studying architecture and design in Berlin, Bluemner left Germany in 1892, moving to Chicago, where he was employed as a draftsman for the World’s Columbian Exposition. He settled in New York in 1901, and his successful design for New York’s Bronx Borough Courthouse in 1904 gave him recognition as an architect and designer. Disillusioned with public commissions, he spent the next few years designing private houses. Committed to his theories of color, he turned away from architecture to devote his life to painting. In 1913 Bluemner exhibited in the Armory Show and gained the support of Alfred Stieglitz, who in 1915 gave the artist a one-man exhibition at his ‘291’ gallery and published Bluemner’s work in Camera Work.

Highly regarded early in his career, his self-aggrandizing and difficult personality led to his estrangement from the mainstream art world, though his work was included in important exhibitions such as ‘Abstract Painting in American Art’ held at the Whitney Museum of American Art in 1935. Nevertheless, feeling unappreciated and depressed, Bluemner took his own life in 1938.