Hyman Bloom

Art Brokerage: Hyman Bloom Latvian Artist: b. 1913-2009. Hyman Bloom was born in Latvia in 1913. In 1920 Hyman left for the US with his parents and brother to join his 2 older brothers who had emmigrated and settled in Boston during the year of Hyman's birth. Bloom's artistic gifts were recognized early and while in 8th grade he received a scholarship to attend classes for gifted students at Boston's Museum of Fine Arts. Bloom's paintings are mystical explorations of light and color. Throughout his life he worked in large part within a relatively small set of themes, each superficially different in nature: Christmas Trees, Rabbis with Torahs, Landscapes, Fish "seascapes", Still Lifes (pottery/gourds) and cadavers/autopsy scenes. The latter subject matter was obviously challenging, eliciting occasional outrage and charges of obscenity when the exhibitions toured the country. Bloom was unconcerned about critical response – he felt that the subject matter, while harrowing, was in fact beautiful and the feeling of boundaries transgressed perhaps added to the intensity that he always sought in a painting. There is unsettled debate as to whether these images were rooted in his family's exposure to Jewish pogroms in the "old country" and later, the Holocaust. What is certain is that Hyman Bloom lived a long productive life, never wavering from his artistic vision of exploring themes of physical and spiritual transformation, and in the process made substantial contributions to 20th century modernism. Listings wanted.