The following information was submitted in April of 2006 by Kevin Murphy:

Robert W. Blinn    (1909-2001)

The landscape painter Robert W. Blinn was born on March 18, 1909 in Jacksonville. Florida. Not much is known about his formative years, except that he graduated from Brooklyn’s Pratt Institute Art School in 1926. Originally, Blinn thought he could make a living as a fine artist, but during the Great Depression, he was able to survive only with the help of  the WPA’s American Paint & Sculpture project.  Like so many other gifted
artists of the 1930s, Blinn’s complete inability to sell paintings erased forever the dream of making a living as a fine artist.

He subsequently married and settled in Huntington, Long Island, where he took the train each day into Manhattan to as series of jobs as editor and layout man for a number of newspapers and magazines, including Dell Publishing, the New York Times, McGraw-Hill and Colliers. I n his spare time, he helped raise two sons, Thomas and Robert, and painted when time permitted.

Blinn was admitted to the Salmagundi Club in 1951 and exhibited his paintings there regularly over the next twenty-two years.  His 12’ x 16” oil on canvas, Winter Rest, was exhibited there in 1954.  Blinn showed his work extensively at exhibitions in New York, including those at the Salmagundi Club; Wanamaker Regional, 1934; Corcoran Biennial, 1937; American Paint/ Sculpture (WPA); Art Institute of Chicago, 1937-38.

Blinn resigned from the Salmagundi Club in 1973 and retired to Stuart, Florida.  While in the sunshine state, Blinn was a member of the Florida Watercolor Society for several decades.  He died at his home in Stuart on August 29, 2001 at the age of 92.

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This profile was written using information obtained from Robert W. Blinn’s obituary in the Stuart, Florida newspaper at the time of his death on August 29, 2001, and also information supplied by Ilene Skeen, Chairman of the Curators’ Committee at the Salmagundi Club, New York and Who Was Who in American Art.