Edwin Howland Blashfield

Spring Scattering Stars, Nude allegory scattering stars from a crescent moon

1927

Born in New York in 1848 he detoured from his plan to enter Harvard and instead left for a ten year sojourn in Paris to study painting. He exhhibited at the Paris Salon from 1874-1892 and also at the Royal Academy in London. He continued his travels through Europe eventually returning and establishing a studio in New York where he became well known for his large scale painting done on commission for the most prominent families. He is noted for the great central dome in the Library of Congress in Washington among dozens of other large public works. He was also known for genre, portraits, ruins and Indians.He developed a distinctive format that put real and Allegorical figures together in pictures with Historical and moral themes. In both easel paintings and his murals Blashfield proceeded from careful black-and-white studies to finished oils on canvas. He often used a frieze-like format for his classically beautiful women depicted with elegant line and rich, inventive color. He understood "thoroughly the decorative qualities in great oil paintings but saw the mural as very different from the easel painting." About the mural, he wrote, "developed into beauty applied to utility, and it culminated as a supreme teacher, through the arts, of patriotism, morals and history. were credited as being integral to the American Renaissance revival of decoration in public buildings. He was a long time member of the Architectural League of New York and the National Society of Mural Painters, and was president of the National Academy of Design from 1920-26, which honored him in 1934 with a special gold medal for commitment to the arts and the academy. He passed away in 1936.