About This Artwork
Peter Blume
American, born Russia (present-day Belarus), 1906-1992
The Rock1944-48
Oil on canvas
146.4 x 188.9 cm (57 5/8 x 74 3/8 in.)
Signed Lower left: Peter Blume, 1948
Gift of Edgar Kaufmann, Jr., 1956.338
The Rock was commissioned in 1939 by the Edgar Kaufmann family and intended for their Frank Lloyd Wright–designed home, Falling Water, in Bear Run, Pennsylvania. Peter Blume labored for years to complete the work. The construction of Falling Water can be seen on the left side of the composition; conversely, the right side depicts a building being destroyed, possibly referring to the demolition of an existing house in order to build Falling Water. The rock sits elevated in the center of the picture, while beneath it the earth has been dug away, leaving the boulder in a precarious position. Although Falling Water may symbolize man and nature existing in harmony, The Rock might possibly suggest man’s destruction of nature for his own gain.
Exhibition, Publication and Ownership Histories
Exhibition History
New York, Durlacher Brothers Gallery, Peter Blume, January 3-29, 1949, cat. 11.
Pittsburgh, Carnegie Institute, Pittsburgh International Exhibition of Paintings, Oct. 19-Dec. 21, 1950, cat. 41.
Metropolitan Museum of Art, 75th Anniversary Exhibition of Painting and Sculpture by 75 Artists Associated with the Art Students Leagure of New York, 1951, cat. 75, ill.
Manchester, New Hampshire, Currier Gallery of Art, Paintings and Drawings: Peter Blume in Retrospective, 1926 to 1964, cat. 19; traveled to Hartford, Conn., Wadsworth Atheneum, July 9-Aug. 16, 1964.
Chicago, Museum of Contemporary Art, Peter Blume exhibition, Jan. 10-Feb. 29,1976.
Publication History
“Peter Blume Presents His Magnum Opus,” Art Digest 23 (Jan. 15, 1949), p. 13 (ill.).
“Blume: Obsessed Realist,” Art News 47 (Jan. 1949), pp. 22-23 (ill.).
Magazine of Art 42 (Mar. 1949), p. 85 (ill.).
"Surrealism Wins in the People's Vote," Art Digest 25, 7 ( Jan. 1, 1951), p. 8, ill.
"The Peoples Choice," Carnegie Magazine, 25, (Jan. 1951) pp. 13-15, ill. cover.
The Seventy-Fifth Anniversary Exhibition of Painting & Sculpture by 75 Artists Associated with the Art Students League of New York (Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1951), p. 75.
Paintings in the Art Institute of Chicago: a Catalogue of the Picture Collection (Art Institute of Chicago, 1961), p. 26.
James A. Schinneller, Art/Search & Self-Discovery, 3rd ed., (Davis Publications, 1975), p. 36.
The Art Institute of Chicago: Twentieth-Century Painting and Sculpture, selected by James N. Wood and Teri J. Edelstein (Art Institute of Chicago, 1996), p. 89 (ill.).
Franklin Toker, Fallingwater Rising (Alfred A. Knopf, 2003), p.317 (ill.).
“Seeing Beyond the Must-Sees,” Chicago Tribune, Section 7, Apr.18, 2003, p. 7.
Judith A. Barter et al., "American Modernism at the Art Institute of Chicago, From World War I to 1955," (Art Institute of Chicago/Yale University Press, 2009), cat. 155.
Ownership History
Commissioned by Edgar Kaufmann, from 1948 to 1955; by descent to Edgar Kaufmann Jr., from 1955 to 1956; The Art Institute of Chicago, 1956.