McCormick Gallery | Norman Bluhm

Norman Bluhm (1921 - 1999) Norman Bluhm was born in Chicago and began his studies in architecture at the age of fifteen with Mies van der Rohe at the Illinois Institute of Technology. He served in the United States Air Force from 1941-1945. He also studied in Florence at the Academia de Belle Arte before moving to Paris in 1947 to continue his education at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts. After coming to New York in 1956, he began showing with Leo Castelli, where he had exhibitions in 1957, 1959 and 1960. The Cedar Tavern became a favorite gathering place for Bluhm, were he met other painters and writers, including Frank O’Hara, Franz Kline, Willem de Kooning and Jackson Pollock. Among the work of this noted group were the 26 Bluhm-O’Hara spontaneous poem paintings, composed in 1960 in Bluhm’s studio in the old TIffany Glass building.

The Corcoran Gallery in Washington, CD exhibited Bluhm’s work in his first museum show in 1969 and he is now recognized as one of the leading figures of Post-War abstraction.

Red Harvest, 1961
26 x 27 inches
oil on board
signed and dated at lower left
signed, dated and titled verso
#6966

Yangtze, 1960
Oil on Canvas
72 x 48 inches
signed and dated at lower left
signed, dated and titled verso
#6958

Untitled(Abstract Composition), 1961
oil on board
23 1/2 x 17 1/2 inches
signed in pencil at lower right
#6961

Red Harvest, 1961
oil on board
26 x 27 inches
signed and dated at lower left
signed, dated and titled verso
#6966