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Ad Code: 3
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"Storm Coming, Dominica, Caribbean"
oil on canvas 25x30,1994
Artwork images are copyright of the artist or assignee
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This biography from the Archives of AskART:
|  The following information, submitted June 2010, is from Kay Story.
My
relationship with Franz Joseph Bolinger is second cousin once
removed. I could not write a formal biography of him, but I can
tell you that he was very nice and fun and enthusiastic. He and
his sister lived together after his mother died. His sister,
Reeves, was sweet and wonderful. She outlived him by many years,
and therefore became the focus of our attention because she was then
alone then.
Reeves and Joe loved their dogs and when I was given
many of the remaining family photographs, I noticed that there
were lots of photos of beloved dogs with various family members.
My sister has a painting that Joe did of his favorite dog.
I know that there were times when he struggled because paintings were
not selling.
I think he taught high school in Miami Beach
during some of those years. I don't think he taught art there.
He also had painting students who came to his house. His sister
was, very likely, his chief financial support. She was a
bookkeeper for a car dealership in Miami.
I think his family
moved to Florida early in his life. I don't know the motivation
for that move, but I know that they must have visited their southern
Illinois relatives at times, because my mother, born in 1911, had
been interested in painting, and "Joe" came to her parents home
Marion, Illinois to give her a painting lesson in their kitchen.
It seems to me, that Reeves told me that they lived in Ft. Lauderdale
before they lived in Miami.
I know that Joe liked to sing and
that he was part of various church choirs at times in his life. I
thought he was an Anglophile as he was obsessed with talking about the
proper church of England. In truth, he may have been trying to keep my
mother from urging him to attend her church. Reeves attended a
Presbyterian Church faithfully for many years.
Reeves, Joe's
sister, was a member of the D.A.R. Their connection to that may
have been through Cas. C. Russell, the maternal grandfather of Joe
and Reeves.
Joe and Reeves were frequent visitors to our home
when I was growing up in Miami. (We moved there when I was 9) My
grandmother came to visit us each winter, and she knew that she had a
first cousin in the Miami area somewhere. I don't remember if she
found Maude Bolinger before Maude died, but she definitely located her
two children, Reeves and Joe. Once found, we visited them in
their home and, more frequently, they came to ours.
Everything in the Bolinger house seemed ancient to me. Joe used the house as
a
studio, so I don't really remember a dining room or living room because
it was all art studio. Reeves and Joe each had their own
bedrooms, and the kitchen was recognizable as a kitchen and separate
room. All else was a mass of things that had probably been moved
to Florida with their parents, except for the canvas and paint and dogs.
Joe did my portrait when I was 18. It was a gift to my parents from Joe and Reeves.
My
friend, Karen Huguet went with me for the three or so sittings at Joe's
house. There was an ironing board set up in the middle of the
house, and my friend ironed their clothes while she waited for me to be
finished. Joe loved that and was very grateful. The
painting was looking a lot like me until I passed along a comment from
my mother. The comment may have been something like, "tell him
not to paint your bangs hanging down in your eyes." My mother was
probably just expressing frustration with me wearing my bangs too long.
She was a "hair dresser", "beautician", and hair was ever on her mind.
She and I, foolishly, thought it an innocent "motherly" comment.
Unfortunately, Joe was upset by my repeating this comment.
He became emotional and frustrated and, likely fearful of a
critical reception to his generous gift. I think he lost all
interest in painting me after that, and the painting never looked like
me again after that day.
Once at a family gathering at my
parents home I looked into the dining room and observed my mother's
oldest brother in conversation with Joe across the table. I think
I gasped in surprise as I noticed for the first time that they had
identical profiles, though they looked different in full face. They
were second cousins who shared not the same grandparents, but the same
great grandparents, Albert Patterson Reeves and Elizabeth Catherine
Emerson, both born in 1831.
I had left Miami after college and
only saw Joe and Reeves on the once per year trip home. Later I
moved to central Florida, but I still saw them infrequently.
Joe Bolinger died after my father did, and I think the last
conversation that I had with him he was disappointed that I had not
thought to save a pair of pliers for him from my father's tool
collection.
He died during heart surgery not too long after that.
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This biography from the Archives of AskART:
|  Following is copy of the artist's obituary from The Miami Herald, Sunday, July 27, 1986, courtesy of Kay Story:
Franz Josef Bolinger, an artist who painted thousands of pictures of
the Everglades, died Friday night after heart surgery. He was
77. A man obsessed by his love of nature, Mr Bolinger was best
known for his outspoken devotion to and massive collection of paintings
on the jEverglades. He liked to call himself the last of the
old-time Florida artists."It's so beautiful, so beautiful that I get
bitter and bitter at these people who are destroying it", Bolinger said
of the Everglades in 1974."If the Creator was willing, I'd paint 500
pictures a year. I don't care if I sell one of them. That's
why I'm painting so furiously from 6 o'clock in the morning to 3
o'clock next morning. I paint every day."
In 1960, Mr. Bolinger became dedicated to preserving the Everglades on
canvas. "Civilization is working night and day to destroy the great
vacant places of the earth," he said then."I will try and retain in the
only place where anything is permanent - man's imagination. Let's
have some happy painting for a change. The world is still full of
beauty. Of course, it's more difficult to paint a sunset than a
board fence or a garbage pail, but just look at the difference."Between
1962 and 1974, Mr. Bolinger almost exclusively painted the Everglades
completing more than 1,000 paintings.
Mr. Bolinger, born in Ft. Lauderdale, lived in Florida nearly all of
his life and was a favorite among many Miamians. Once when he opened
his Miami Beach gallery in 1969 among hundreds of people who braved the
torrential rains, there was a woman who said she had been trying to buy
a Bolinger for nine years. Her proof was a 1960 clipping of an
article on Mr. Bolinger.
Mr. Bolinger, who lived with his older sister, Reeves Bolinger, never
married. "I never married because I'd have a dozen children and
never do this," He once said. Before taking up landscape
painting, Mr. Bolinger concentrated on portraits and even studied for
several months with a doctor, in order to gain anatomical
accuracy. He also dabbled in sculpture and was an accomplished
tenor, performing two concerts in Washington, D.C. in 1947.
Mostly a self-taught painter, Mr. Bolinger went to the University of
Miami but studied science and botany. "I refused an art degree
because they were painting toilet seats - art!" he once said. Mr.
Bolinger never liked modern art and strongly criticized it. "I
won't paint to match a couch!" he once said. "And I am not going
to paint a purple cow."
Mr. Bolinger is survived by his sister. Services are being handled by Lithgow Coral Way Chapel.
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This biography from the Archives of AskART:
| The following, submitted by Kay Story, is a copy of a promotional brochure for an exhibition for Franz Josef Bolinger by Alton
J. Chapman:
Franz Josef Bolinger, acclaimed by critics and many collectors
as "Premier Landscapist of Florida," was born of pioneer stock near a
small college town in Southern Illinois. He began his pioneer painting
of the Everglades in his early youth in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.Mr.
Bolinger has won first awards as far back as early grade school. At
the age of 18, he was presented a scholarship by Dewing Woodward of the
University of Miami, first to recognize this future master painter of
Florida landscapes. Since then, his training has been varied because
of European tutors resulting in his being taught to think for
himself.
Upon completion of three one-man shows held at the John
Nicholson Galleries in New York, he returned to Miami on the advice of
Mr. Nicholson to paint the subject he knew best, rather than the
subjects which should appeal to the commercial buying public. Bolinger
flatly denies that he is a pointilistic impressionist. Rather, he
refers to himself as an illuminatist painter, which has rsulted from
his study of atmospheric radiance of the Everglades, so often
overlooked by the majority of artists attempting to paint a subject
beyond the scope of their comprehension.
Bolinger feels that to know
the Glades, one must "wade" through the mud and "smell" the exotic
growth. Periodically throughout the year, regardless of the heat or
rain, he may be found canoeing or tramping deep in the heart of the
Glades gathering research for future paintings. His paintings are to
be found in the finest of galleries on the east and west coasts of the
United States.
Mr. Bolinger is independent and aloof, refusing to follow
any current trends or school of art, keeping the Everglades as his main
forte. He has been elected fellow of numerous art societies, but is not
overly enthusiastic at the notoriety so keeps to the Everglades. To
quote Bolinger, "There is no need to go to Europe to paint. I find the
State of Florida has more fine scenery to paint than one could possibly
do in a lifetime, even with the diabolical destruction now going
on."Mr. Bolinger is referred to by many as the "most meticulous painter
of the Everglades," which was resulted from his complete dedication to
preserving the Glades on canvas like Remington and Bierdstad who
likewise preserved the Old West.
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| ** If you discover credit omissions or have additional information to add, please let us know at registrar@AskART.com. |
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