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Estimate: $ 1,500 - $ 2,500
OSCAR BLUEMNER Harlem River, Washington Heights.
Color crayons on cream wove paper, 1911. 123x188 mm; 4 3/4x7 1/2 inches. Signed with the artist's monogram, dated and inscribed "Washington Heights" in ink, upper recto, and inscribed "Harlem River" in pencil, lower right recto.
Provenance: Private collection, New York.
Bluemner (1867-1938), one America's finest Modernist colorists, was overlooked for the majority of his career. Now however his place alongside Georgia O'Keeffe, John Marin, Marsden Hartley and Max Weber--all fellow exhibitors at Alfred Stieglitz's "291" Gallery in New York--is understood and he ranks among the group of most modern and influential artists in America during the early 20th century.
Developing a friendship with Stieglitz around 1911, and after a drawn-out litigation to rightfully claim his recognition and compensation for designing the Bronx, New York courthouse, Bluemner decided to turn completely to painting in 1912 and embarked on a seven month European voyage. Upon his return, after exposure to works by Paul Cézanne, Vincent van Gogh, as well as the Fauves and Cubists, Bluemner's work reflected a dramatic shift toward the bright, streamlined style that would define his work and parallel the developments made by other American modern artists during the early 20th century. Like Edward Hopper, Bluemner traveled widely along the east coast, in the countryside surrounding New York, and made numerous watercolor studies of landscapes and buildings, virtually all of which are devoid of human presence.
