Peter Blume American, born Russia (now Belarus), 1906–1992
About this artwork
As Peter Blume struggled with the commission for The Rock (also in the collection of the Art Institute of Chicago) his health deteriorated and he traveled to Key West, Florida, during the winter of 1940 to recuperate. Buoy was one of three works he completed upon his return to Pennsylvania. Blume spoke of the buoys he viewed in Florida: They’d put out these bright red balls, and inside of three or four weeks they’d be covered with … all sorts of odd growths … I watched them stripping this stuff off and getting to the red thing again … I saw these balls, great big buoys, as a form of the earth and the laceration down to the red thing as a sort of bleeding world going on.
Gift of Marcia W. Dunbar-Soule Dobson in memory of Helen Flanders Dunbar, M.D.
Reference Number
2003.432
Extended information about this artwork
Frank Ander Trapp, “Peter Blume,” (Rizzoli, 1987) , 73–4 (ill.).
Judith A. Barter et al., American Modernism at the Art Institute of Chicago, From World War I to 1955, (Chicago: Art Institute of Chicago/Yale University Press, 2009), cat. 156.
Robert Cozzolino et al., “Peter Blume: Nature and Metamorphosis” exh. cat. (Pennsylavnia Academy of the Fine Arts/University of Pennsylvania Press, 2014) cat. 51.
Whitney Museum of American Art, Annual Exhibition of Paintings by Artists Under Forty, Nov 12–Dec 30, 1941, cat. 11.
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, One Hundred and Thirty–Seventh Annual Exhibition of Painting and Sculpture, Jan 25–Mar 1, 1942, cat. 394.
Museum of Modern Art, American Realists and Magic Realists, Feb 10–Mar 21, 1943; traveled to Buffalo, Albright Art Gallery, Apr 5–May 5, 1943; Minneapolis Institute of Arts, Jul 1–30, 1943; San Francisco Museum of Art, Aug 23–Sep 19, 1943; Art Gallery of Toronto, Nov 12–Dec 19, 1943; Cleveland Museum of Art, Jan 1–29, 1944, cat. 55.
Boston, Institute of Modern Art, Four Modern American Painters, Mar 2–Apr 2, 1945, cat. 12.
New York, Durlacher Bros., Peter Blume, Jan 3–29, 1949, cat. 5.
Manchester, New Hampshire, Currier Gallery of Art, Peter Blume Paintings and Drawings, in Retrospect, 1925–1964, Apr 18–May 31, 1964; traveled to Hartford, Connecticut, Wadsworth Atheneum, Jul 9–Aug 16, 1964, cat. 16.
Chicago, Museum of Contemporary Art, Peter Blume: A Retrospective Exhibition, Jan 10–Feb 29, 1976, no cat. no.
The artist; given by him to Dr. Helen Flanders Dunbar, Sherman, Connecticut; by descent to her daughter, Marcia Dunbar-Soule; given by her to the Art Institute of Chicago, 2003.
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