This biography from the Archives of AskART:
| | Born in Paxton, IL on April 6, 1895. Bloomster studied at the AIC and in Paris. An avid sailor, he participated in many of the annual Chicago-Mackinac races on Lake Michigan. His love of sailing craft and the ocean were to become the dominant theme of his artworks. He arrived in San Francisco about 1939 and established a studio-home at 2726 Greenwich Street where he taught painting. During WWII he was commissioned to do portraits of many of the Navy’s fighting ships. Bloomster died in San Francisco on May 31, 1968. Member: SWA. | Source:
Edan Hughes, "Artists in California, 1786-1940"
SF Chronicle, 6-1-1968 (obituary). | | Nearly 20,000 biographies can be found in Artists in California 1786-1940 by Edan Hughes and is available for sale ($150). For a full book description and order information please click here. |
Biography from Fine Arts Collection, Luther College:
| Edgar Bloomster was an artist and author who lived in the Chicago, IL,
area. He was born April 6, 1895 and died in San Francisco in May 1968.
He is the author and illustrator of a book entitled Sailing and Small Craft Down the Ages, published in 1940 and reissued in a second edition in 1969. The book was published by the United States Naval Institute.
Bloomster exhibited in Chicago at the Swedish American Art Association
exhibit at Marshall Fields galleries in 1936 (“Bathers and Surf”) and
in the Carson-Pirie Galleries in Chicago in 1933 (“An Australian Wool
Clipper”) and 1936 (“Waning Sunset”).
The painting by Bloomster in the Fine Arts Collection is an oil on
canvas seascape featuring a sailing ship in rigged in full sail. It is
signed in the lower left corner, E.L. Bloomster 1933. It was donated to
Luther College by Arthur Andersen in the late 1930’s. Andersen, founder
of the accounting firm which bears his name, was actively interested in
his Norwegian ancestry. He was a supporter of several of the colleges
in the upper Midwest founded by Norwegian-Americans.
Sources:
The Art Institute of Chicago Catalogue of an Exhibition of Etchings,
January 28-March 1, 1931;
1 page from the Chicago Art Institute
libraries scrapbook, dated April 1932-1933 and 2 pages dated February
to August 1936;
Wilson, Raymond. Index of American Print Exhibitions, 1882-1940. Metuchen, NJ: Scarecrow Press, 1988. |
| ** If you discover credit omissions or have additional information to add, please let us know at registrar@AskART.com. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|