Skip to main content
Want more images or videos?
Request additional images or videos from the seller
1 of 7

Martin Sumers
Vintage Abstract Expressionist Hyman Bloom Photo Collage Assemblage Photograph

c.1998

$1,200
£892.06
€1,044.32
CA$1,678.17
A$1,873.85
CHF 977.45
MX$23,041.80
NOK 12,336.67
SEK 11,614.54
DKK 7,790.61
Shipping
Retrieving quote...
The 1stDibs Promise:
Authenticity Guarantee,
Money-Back Guarantee,
24-Hour Cancellation

About the Item

This is a unique original collage, decoupage style of Jiri Kolar, This is an exceptional artwork which was part of a collaboration between Hyman Bloom and fellow artist and his very good friend Martin Sumers. This is pencil signed by Martin Sumers. Provenance: Acquired from the Sumers estate collection. Hyman Bloom (March 29, 1913 – August 26, 2009) was a Latvian-born American painter. His work was influenced by his Jewish heritage and Eastern religions as well as by artists including Altdorfer, Grünewald, Caravaggio, Rembrandt, Blake, Bresdin, James Ensor and Chaim Soutine. He first came to prominence when his work was included in the 1942 Museum of Modern Art exhibition "Americans 1942 -- 18 Artists from 9 States". MoMA purchased 2 paintings from the exhibition and Time magazine singled him out as a "striking discovery" in their exhibition review. His work was selected for both the 1948 and 1950 Venice Biennale exhibitions and his 1954 retrospective traveled from Boston's Institute of Contemporary Art to the Albright Gallery and the de Young Museum before closing out at The Whitney Museum of American Art in 1955. In a 1954 interview with Yale art professor Bernard Chaet, Willem de Kooning indicated that he and Jackson Pollock both considered Bloom to be “America’s first abstract expressionist”, a label that Bloom would disavow. Starting in the mid 1950s his work began to shift more towards works on paper and he exclusively focused on drawing throughout the 1960s, returning to painting in 1971. He continued both drawing and painting until his death in 2009 at the age of 9 Hyman Bloom (né Melamed) was born into an orthodox Jewish family in the tiny Jewish village of Brunavišķi in what is now Latvia, then part of the Russian Empire At a young age Bloom planned to become a rabbi, but his family could not find a suitable teacher. In the eighth grade he received a scholarship to a program for gifted high school students at the Museum of Fine Arts. He attended the Boston High School of Commerce, which was near the museum. He also took art classes at the West End Community Center, a settlement house. The classes were taught by Harold Zimmerman, a student at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, who also taught the young Jack Levine at another settlement house in Roxbury. When Bloom was fifteen, he and Levine began studying with a well-known Harvard art professor, Denman Ross, who rented a studio for the purpose and paid the boys a weekly stipend to enable them to continue their studies rather than take jobs to support their families. He took Bloom and Levine on a field trip to the Museum of Modern Art in New York, where Bloom was impressed by the work of Rouault and Soutine and began experimenting with their expressive painting styles. In the 1930s Bloom worked sporadically for the Public Works of Art Project and the Federal Art Project (WPA), He shared a studio in the South End with Levine and another artist, Betty Chase. It was during this period that he developed a lifelong interest in Eastern philosophy and music, and in Theosophy. He first received national attention in 1942 when thirteen of his paintings were included in the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) exhibition Americans 1942: 18 Artists from 9 States, curated by Dorothy Miller. MoMA purchased two of his paintings from that exhibition, and he was featured in Time magazine. The titles of his paintings in the exhibition reflect some of his recurring themes. Two were titled The Synagogue, another, Jew with the Torah; Bloom was actually criticized by one reviewer for including "stereotypical" Jewish images. He also had two paintings titled The Christmas Tree, and another titled The Chandelier, both subjects he returned to repeatedly. Another, Skeleton (c. 1936), was followed by a series of cadaver paintings in the forties, and The Fish (c. 1936) was one of many paintings and drawings of fish he created over the course of his career. Bloom was associated at first with the growing Abstract Expressionist movement. Willem de Kooning and Jackson Pollock, who first saw Bloom's work at the MoMA exhibition, considered Bloom "the first Abstract Expressionist artist in America." In 1950 he was chosen, along with the likes of de Kooning, Pollock, and Arshile Gorky, to represent the United States at the Venice Biennale. That same year Elaine de Kooning wrote about Bloom in ARTnews, noting that in paintings such as The Harpies, his work approached total abstraction: "the whole impact is carried in the boiling action of the pigment". In 1951 Thomas B. Hess reproduced Bloom's Archaeological Treasure in his first book, Abstract Painting: Background and American Phase, along with works by Picasso, Pollock, and others. Both de Kooning and Hess remarked on Bloom's expressive paint handling, a key characteristic of Abstract Expressionist painting. As abstract expressionism dominated the American art world, Bloom became disenchanted with it, calling it "emotional catharsis, with no intellectual basis." In addition, instead of moving to New York to pursue his career, he opted to stay in Boston. As a result he fell out of favor with critics and never achieved the kind of fame that Pollock and others did. He disliked self-promotion and never placed much value on critical acclaim. Many of Bloom's paintings feature rabbis, usually holding the Torah. According to Bloom, his intentions were more artistic than religious. He began questioning his Jewish faith early in life, and painted rabbis, he claimed, because that was what he knew. Over the course of his career he produced dozens of paintings of rabbis, some of whom bore no small resemblance to himself. When asked if they were self-portraits, he replied cryptically, "When did I ever paint anything else? The Fuller Museum presented a full retrospective of his work in 1996. Another was organized by the National Academy of Design in New York in 2002. His work is included in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art, the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Smithsonian's Hirshhorn Museum, the National Academy of Design, and many others. Hyman Bloom: The Beauty of All Things, a film about the artist's life and work, was released in October 2009. Honors and awards Critic's Choice Award from the Cincinnati Museum of Art for Christmas Tree, 1945 Guggenheim fellowship, 1949 Academy Award in Art from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, 1953 Ford Foundation fellowship, 1959 Elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters, 1974 Elected to the National Academy of Design, 1984 Thomas R. Proctor Prize for Jew with Torah from the National Academy of Design, 1999 Martin Sumers, painter, born in New York City, 1922, studied in University of Pennsylvania. Solo Exhibits: Art Fair Gallery; Nordness Gallery; Art Fair Gallery drawing ; Graphics Group Exhibits: Aspects Gallery 1960; Art Fair Gallery 1960-1967; Hudson River Museum 1960; Montclair Art Museum 1964, 1967; New York Worlds Fair 1965; New Jersey State Museum State Annuals 1965, 1966, 1967; The Pratt Center for Contemporary Printmaking 1966; Forum Gallery, Sculpture; Art Fair Gallery Sculpture 1968; Art Center of Northern New Jersey 1968; American Academy of Arts and Letters 1968; Art in Park in Paterson NJ, Sculpture, 2nd. prize 1970 Holdings : New Jersey State Museum; Butler Institute of American Art; Roanoke Fine Arts Center; Housatonic College; Pen Morton College; University of North Carolina; Cornell College; Cedar Rapids Art Center; University of Miami; Slater Memorial Gallery in CT; Smith College in MA; Brandeis Rose Art Museum; Rollins College in Winter Park, FL; De Cordova Museum in Lincoln, NE; Albrecht Gallery in St. Joseph, MO; Norfolk Museum of Arts and Sciences; State University of New York; State University College in Potsdam, NY; St. Laurence University; Evansville Museum of Arts and Sciences; Canton Art Institute; Russell Sage College in Albany, NY
  • Creator:
    Martin Sumers (1922, American)
  • Creation Year:
    c.1998
  • Dimensions:
    Height: 4 in (10.16 cm)Width: 4.25 in (10.8 cm)
  • Medium:
  • Movement & Style:
  • Period:
  • Condition:
    Good. Minor wear. Never framed.
  • Gallery Location:
    Surfside, FL
  • Reference Number:
    1stDibs: LU38214438052

More From This Seller

View All
Vintage Abstract Expressionist Hyman Bloom Photo Collage Assemblage Photograph
By Martin Sumers
Located in Surfside, FL
This is a unique original collage, decoupage style of Jiri Kolar, This is an exceptional artwork which was part of a collaboration between Hyman Bloom and fellow artist and his very ...
Category

20th Century Modern Animal Prints

Materials

Paper, Photographic Paper

Vintage Abstract Expressionist Hyman Bloom Photo Collage Assemblage Photograph
By Martin Sumers
Located in Surfside, FL
This is a unique original collage, decoupage style of Jiri Kolar, This is an exceptional artwork which was part of a collaboration between Hyman Bloom and fellow artist and his very ...
Category

1990s Modern Animal Prints

Materials

Paper, Photographic Paper

Abstract Mixed Media Torn Paper Collage Pop Expressionist Painting
By Ronald Ahlstrom
Located in Surfside, FL
American Artist 1922 – 2012 Served his country as a Sergeant in World War II, both stateside and in the Philippines. After the war, native Chicagoan Ronald Ahlström graduated from the School of the Art Institute, He became a prominent Abstract Expressionist collage assemblage maker working in a style similar to some of the New York school assemblage artists such as Robert Goodnough. Utilizing cutout letters in a concrete poetry style. He frequently exhibited his collages and paintings in the Chicago and Vicinity exhibits of the 1950s and 1960s. He worked as the curator of the Tacoma Art Museum in Tacoma WA during the early 1960s. He showed at Exhibition Momentum in the ’60s, and was selected for the Corcoran Biennial. Together with his colleagues and fellow-abstractionists Robert Nickle, Morris Barazani, Harry Bouras, George Kokines, and George Waite, he exhibited at McCormick Place in an independently produced survey of contemporary Chicagoans, circa 1962, under the banner 12 Chicago Artists. An adept and sensitive painter, Ahlström’s most personal work is as an abstract expressionist collage maker. Using strips of paper, sometimes weathered and beaten into rough hewn surfaces, he creates immaculately layered, lively, gestural compositions. He was the recipient of many art awards and prizes throughout his long career. His works are part of numerous private, corporate and museum collections. His work was published in many national and international art publications including Who's Who in America and Who's Who in American Art. he taught art at both high school and college level. His other passions included history, literature and music. He was an accomplished base fiddle and guitar player and often played professionally in clubs during the late 1940s and 1950s. In 1958, he was awarded the William H. Bartels Prize of five hundred dollars at the Art Institute of Chicago. Education: Art Institute of Chicago University of Chicago DePaul University Exhibitions: Art Institute of Chicago Annuals, Corcoran Biennial in Washington DC, 12 Chicago Artists 50 Chicago Artists European Exhibit at the US Information Agency Collage and Construction, Hyde Park Art Center, Chicago Tacoma Art Museum, Washington Henry Gallery, University of Washington, Seattle 50th Northwestern Annual, Seattle Art Museum, Chicago Invitational, University of Illinois One Man Exhibits: Rockford College, Rockford Il. Barat College, Lake Forest Il. Rodger Wilson Gallery, Chicago, Il. Touchstone Gallery, New York, NY. Joseph Faulkner, Main Street Galleries, Chicago, Il. Zriny Galleries, Chicago Il. Awards: Clyde Carr Prize, Art Institute of Chicago William H. Bartels Prize, Art Institute of Chicago James Broadus Clark Prize, Art Institute of Chicago Alumni of Art Institute Prize Singer and Sons Prize, Navy Pier, Chicago Abel Fagan Prize, Festival of Fine Arts, Lake Forest, Il. Ford Foundation Purchase Prize, Seattle, Wa. Collections: Art Institute of Chicago Barat College Tacoma Art Museum, Wa. Phibrook Art Center, Tulsa, Ok. Blue-Cross Collection, Chicago, Il. Atlantic Richfield Collection Illinois Bell Telephone Collection Container Corporation of...
Category

20th Century Abstract Expressionist Mixed Media

Materials

Paint, Paper, Mixed Media

Mixed Media Abstract Collage
By Alejandra Icaza
Located in Surfside, FL
Genre: Contemporary Subject: Abstract Medium: Mixed Media, Collage Surface: Paper Country: Spain Dimensions: 14" x 11" Dimensions w/Frame: 15" x 12" Alejandra Icaza Born in Bilbao,...
Category

Late 20th Century Contemporary Mixed Media

Materials

Mixed Media

Large Assemblage Collage 2 Sided Painting Outsider Art
By Paul Shimon
Located in Surfside, FL
Born in New York, Paul Shimon (1919 - 2011) was both an accomplished artist and composer. Considered by some to be an Early Outsider artist, Shimon studied at the Art Students Leag...
Category

Late 20th Century Abstract Figurative Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Mixed Media

Abstract Mixed Media Torn Paper Collage Pop Expressionist Painting
By Ronald Ahlstrom
Located in Surfside, FL
American Artist 1922 – 2012 Served his country as a Sergeant in World War II, both stateside and in the Philippines. After the war, native Chicagoan Ronald Ahlström graduated from the School of the Art Institute, He became a prominent Abstract Expressionist collage assemblage maker working in a style similar to some of the New York school assemblage artists such as Robert Goodnough. Utilizing cutout letters in a concrete poetry style. He frequently exhibited his collages and paintings in the Chicago and Vicinity exhibits of the 1950s and 1960s. He worked as the curator of the Tacoma Art Museum in Tacoma WA during the early 1960s. He showed at Exhibition Momentum in the ’60s, and was selected for the Corcoran Biennial. Together with his colleagues and fellow-abstractionists Robert Nickle, Morris Barazani, Harry Bouras, George Kokines, and George Waite, he exhibited at McCormick Place in an independently produced survey of contemporary Chicagoans, circa 1962, under the banner 12 Chicago Artists. An adept and sensitive painter, Ahlström’s most personal work is as an abstract expressionist collage maker. Using strips of paper, sometimes weathered and beaten into rough hewn surfaces, he creates immaculately layered, lively, gestural compositions. He was the recipient of many art awards and prizes throughout his long career. His works are part of numerous private, corporate and museum collections. His work was published in many national and international art publications including Who's Who in America and Who's Who in American Art. he taught art at both high school and college level. His other passions included history, literature and music. He was an accomplished base fiddle and guitar player and often played professionally in clubs during the late 1940s and 1950s. In 1958, he was awarded the William H. Bartels Prize of five hundred dollars at the Art Institute of Chicago. Education: Art Institute of Chicago University of Chicago DePaul University Exhibitions: Art Institute of Chicago Annuals, Corcoran Biennial in Washington DC, 12 Chicago Artists 50 Chicago Artists European Exhibit at the US Information Agency Collage and Construction, Hyde Park Art Center, Chicago Tacoma Art Museum, Washington Henry Gallery, University of Washington, Seattle 50th Northwestern Annual, Seattle Art Museum, Chicago Invitational, University of Illinois One Man Exhibits: Rockford College, Rockford Il. Barat College, Lake Forest Il. Rodger Wilson Gallery, Chicago, Il. Touchstone Gallery, New York, NY. Joseph Faulkner, Main Street Galleries, Chicago, Il. Zriny Galleries, Chicago Il. Awards: Clyde Carr Prize, Art Institute of Chicago William H. Bartels Prize, Art Institute of Chicago James Broadus Clark Prize, Art Institute of Chicago Alumni of Art Institute Prize Singer and Sons Prize, Navy Pier, Chicago Abel Fagan Prize, Festival of Fine Arts, Lake Forest, Il. Ford Foundation Purchase Prize, Seattle, Wa. Collections: Art Institute of Chicago Barat College Tacoma Art Museum, Wa. Phibrook Art Center, Tulsa, Ok. Blue-Cross Collection, Chicago, Il. Atlantic Richfield Collection Illinois Bell Telephone Collection Container Corporation of...
Category

20th Century Abstract Expressionist Mixed Media

Materials

Paint, Paper, Mixed Media

You May Also Like

Original Vintage Collage By Wayne Timm #9
By Wayne Timm
Located in West Palm Beach, FL
Paper and Adhesive collage by Wayne Timm. Image or mat opening measures 8 x 8 in. In the 1960's, Wayne Timm rubbed elbows with the likes of Warhol, Lichtenstein, Rauchenburg and ma...
Category

1960s Abstract Mixed Media

Materials

Paper, Adhesive, Magazine Paper

Original Vintage Collage by Wayne Timm #7
By Wayne Timm
Located in West Palm Beach, FL
Vintage Paper and Adhesive collage by Wayne Timm. (Mat opening) or Image measures 11 3/4 x 12.5 in. In the 1960's, Wayne Timm rubbed elbows with the likes of Warhol, Lichtenstein, ...
Category

1960s Abstract Mixed Media

Materials

Paper, Adhesive, Magazine Paper

Original Vintage Collage By Wayne Timm #8
By Wayne Timm
Located in West Palm Beach, FL
Paper and Adhesive collage by Wayne Timm. Image or mat opening measures 11 x 13 in. In the 1960's, Wayne Timm rubbed elbows with the likes of Warhol, Lichtenstein, Rauchenburg and ...
Category

1960s Abstract Mixed Media

Materials

Paper, Adhesive, Magazine Paper

Original Vintage Collage By Wayne Timm #16
By Wayne Timm
Located in West Palm Beach, FL
Paper and Adhesive collage by Wayne Timm. Image or mat opening measures 11.75x 16 in. In the 1960's, Wayne Timm rubbed elbows with the likes of Warhol, Lichtenstein, Rauchenburg an...
Category

1960s Abstract Mixed Media

Materials

Paper, Adhesive, Magazine Paper

Peter Astrom, "Untitled 1", Abstract Expressionist Photo Collage Print
By Peter Astrom
Located in New York, NY
"Untitled 1", abstract expressionist photo collage print by Swedish artist Peter Astrom. Signed Astrom at bottom right margin, and New York 2010 bottom le...
Category

21st Century and Contemporary American Scandinavian Modern Photography

Materials

Paper

Original Vintage Collage by Wayne Timm #5
By Wayne Timm
Located in West Palm Beach, FL
Paper and Adhesive collage by Wayne Timm. Image and mat opening measures 11 3/4 x 12 3/4 in. In the 1960's, Wayne Timm rubbed elbows with the likes of Warhol, Lichtenstein, Rauchen...
Category

1960s Abstract Mixed Media

Materials

Paper, Adhesive, Magazine Paper