Peter Blume (American, born Smarhoń, Russian Empire, 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.
Date
Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.
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 (Art Institute of Chicago, 2009), 311–13, cat. 156 (ill.).
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; Buffalo, Albright Art Gallery, Apr. 5–May 5, 1943; Minneapolis Institute of Arts, July 1–30, 1943; San Francisco Museum of Art, Aug. 23–Sept. 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; Hartford, Connecticut, Wadsworth Atheneum, July 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, CT; by descent to her daughter, Marcia Dunbar-Soule; given by her to the Art Institute of Chicago, 2003.
Object information is a work in progress and may be updated as new research findings emerge. To help improve this record, please email . Information about image downloads and licensing is available here.
