This biography from the Archives of AskART:
|  The following, submitted July 2004, is from Jeff Hart, a descendant of Jerome Blum.
"Simon Blum was my great, great grandfather. Jerome Blum was his
nephew and the son of Simon's brother, Julius Blum, who with Simon
formed a wholesale men's furnishing store in Chicago."
Jerome
Blum was born in Chicago and began his training at the Francis J. Smith
Art Academy and the Art Institute of Chicago. In 1906 Blum
traveled to Paris to further his studies and experience the modern
trends in European art, especially Fauvism.
Blum described his
life-changing experiences in Paris: "You go to Paris - you have been in
Paris for a few years - you have become modern - you take on color -
you leave off brown of the golden ages - you shed your coat of brown
for colors of the rainbow - you become another phase of yourself."
Blum
infused his canvases with a saturated palette of Fauve and
Post-Impressionistic color. His fusion of high coloration with
bold forms culminated in rich paintings of landscapes and still
lifes. Blum was introduced to the work of Gaughin, Matisse,
Cezanne, and according to Blum's memoirs a painting by Van Gogh
affected him deeply and liberated him from his academic training.
In Paris Blum also befriended fellow American artists John Marin,
Alfred Maurer, Samuel Halpert and sculptor Jo Davidson.
After
showing in the Parisian Salons for a few years, Blum returned to
Chicago in 1910 where he met writers Theodore Dreiser, Sherwood
Anderson and Ben Hecht. Blum remained friends with these writers for
many years. In 1911, Blum exhibited his work at the W. Scott
Thurber Gallery in Chicago where his work was deemed radical in this
traditional climate. In 1914 Blum's work was received more
positively than at his showing in the 1913 Armory show. One art
critic wrote, "Jerome S. Blum is a radical who is creating a real
sensation in Chicago." His recent exhibition at the Art Institute
received the most favorable comment from art lovers and critics alike.
Through
travel and exploration Blum would find artistic inspiration. Over
the course of the next twenty-five years he visited China, Cuba,
Corsica, Tunisia, the American West, Tahiti and the South Seas.
He would spend time at length in France, particularly in Paris and the
small village hill towns in the South of France. In The Palm Trees, Cuba,
Blum's red tile roofs brighten an active skyline that is framed by tall
verdant palm trees. The geometrical landscape is infused with
brilliant color. This is the color Blum was seeking. In the
south of France and in Brittany, Blum would paint the sunlit hill towns
and fishing villages in a style reminiscent of Paul Cézanne.
Many of his works were executed in Cagnes and Concarneau. In Flowers in Front of a Window
(Cagnes), Blum updated the traditional three-tiered structure of a
traditional landscape to create a modern composition. The linear
rooftops recede to the purples and golds of distant hills. A
window from which the viewer gets a glimpse of the landscape Blum so
loved frames this landscape.
Jerome Blum participated in
numerous exhibitions in Paris and in New York, including shows at
Anderson Galleries, M. Knoedler, and the Whitney Studio Club. He also
exhibited at the San Francisco Museum of Art, Boston Art Club,
Worcester Art Museum, Philadelphia Art Alliance, and the Art Institute
of Chicago.
Works by Blum are in the permanent collection of the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York.
In
1935 Blum was confined to a mental hospital, and though he made
frequent appeals to be released, he remained institutionalized for the
rest of his life.
He died at the Hudson River State Hospital in Poughkeepsie, New York on July 23, 1956.
Source: http://www.hollistaggart.com/Exhibitions/Blum2001/PR.html.
Note: Blum and his wife Lucile Swan (they married in 1912) traveled to Tahiti to
visit
Gauguin. Jerome and Lucile divorced in 1924. Lucile went on
to become an intimate friend of Teilhard de Chardin and one of his most
ardent followers as well. Because of his profession, Jerome was
considered to be a "black sheep" of the family.
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This biography from the Archives of AskART:
|  Born in Chicago in 1884, Jerome Blum became a painter of works often
inspired by the many environments in which he lived and from the colors
and atmospheric light he observed in these places. These works included
landscapes and seascapes picturing southern French hill towns, scenes
from the Cuban countryside, as well as still-lifes of exotic fruits.
He
studied in Chicago at the Francis J. Smith Art Academy and attended
classes at the Art Institute of Chicago. In 1906, Blum traveled to
Paris where he enrolled at the École des Beaux-Arts. It was in the French
capital that he befriended other American artists such as John Marin,
Alfred H. Maurer, Jo Davidson, and the artist who was to become his
mentor, Samuel Halpert.
After showing at Parisian salons for a few
years, Blum returned to Chicago in 1910. There he established
friendships with regionalist writers Sherwood Anderson and Theodore
Dreiser, with whom he remained close for decades.
Blum was a
highly independent and unconventional individual as well as a world
traveler. He journeyed to many destinations in Europe and China as well
as in this country including the far West where he painted the Grand
Canyon in 1931.
He traveled to Cuba and Tunisia, among
countless other locations. He lived in Paris and in the south of France
for lengthy periods of time between 1910 and the 1920s. Blum even took
up residence in Tahiti for ten months. Jerome Blum was an expert
colorist in an Expressionist vein whose paintings reveal a heightened
sense of bold forms.
He died in 1956 in Poughkeepsie, New York.
Source:
http://www.hollistaggart.com/NewsLetter/2001FallWinter/Exhibitions.html
Peggy and Harold Samuels, "Encyclopedia of Artists of the American West"
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Jerome Blum is also mentioned in these AskART essays:
Painters of Grand Canyon
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