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D.A.P.
Modern Mystic: The Art of Hyman Bloom
Introduction by Debra Bricker Balken. Text by Henry Adams, Marcia Brennan.
“Hyman is awesomely consistent, brilliant, ascetic—more and more people say he is the best painter in America, and so he is.” –Robert Lowell
This important publication, the first of its kind, presents the paintings and drawings of an aesthetic and mystical searcher in the tradition of William Blake, Albert Pinkham Ryder and Odilon Redon, who strove for the moment when, in his own words, “the mood is as intense as it can be made.” Hyman Bloom’s work, influenced by his Jewish heritage (whose impression on his painting he described as a “weeping of the heart”) and Eastern religions, touches on many of the themes of 20th-century culture and art: the body, its immanence and transience, abstraction and spiritual mysticism. Bloom was admired by leading figures in the art world of his time, including Alfred H. Barr Jr. and Dorothy Miller; Jackson Pollock and Willem de Kooning hailed him as “the first Abstract Expressionist.” The poet Robert Lowell praised Bloom, writing in a letter to Elizabeth Bishop, “Hyman is awesomely consistent, brilliant, ascetic—more and more people say he is the best painter in America, and so he is.” The book’s illustrations include ten previously unpublished masterworks, plus images of the figure as powerful and provocative as the paintings by Francis Bacon that were once exhibited alongside them.
Hyman Bloom (1913–2009) was born in Lithuania, now Latvia. He and his family immigrated to the United States in 1920, escaping anti-Semitic persecution. He lived and worked in the Boston area until his death. His work is held in many public collections, including the Museum of Modern Art, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, the Whitney Museum of American Art and others.
Featured image is reproduced from 'Modern Mystic: The Art of Hyman Bloom.'
PRAISE AND REVIEWS
Paris Review
Mystical... distinctly unsettling.
Artspace
Hyman Bloom: The Best Abstract Expressionist You Never Heard Of
Artnet
Sarah Cascone
Hyman Bloom, the forgotten modernist who de Kooning once called ‘the First Abstract Expressionist,’ is having a comeback.
Art in America
Eleanor Heartney
Along with the MFA show and Modern Mystic, an exhibition of his paintings... confirms the continuing power of his themes: the vulnerability of flesh, the exploration of the spiritual through art, and the conviction that change is the essence of reality.
STATUS: Out of stock
Temporarily out of stock pending additional inventory.
"Spiritual life cannot be delegated; true spiritual experience can only come from within, and it is only through individual effort to deepen the process that a state of grace can be achieved. Certain kinds of knowledge can only be earned, sometimes through effort, and other times through suffering." So said Hyman Bloom, the influential but overlooked painter whose work is collected in this essential monograph. Despite Bloom's European Jewish heritage, his lifelong interest in mysticism ultimately transcended any one religion, philosophy or point of view. Featured image is "The Stone" (1947). continue to blog
"The Hull" (1952) is reproduced from Modern Mystic: The Art of Hyman Bloom, the enlightening new overview from D.A.P., published in advance of MFA Boston's major Bloom exhibition, opening this summer. A Boston painter described by Jackson Pollock and Willem de Kooning as "the first Abstract Expressionist," Bloom was a pioneer who brought a "new quality into American painting—a new sense of spiritual striving and emotional urgency, and a new sort of release from the confines of literal representation," according to essayist Henry Adams. Yet, today he is nowhere near as well-known as his contemporaries. Born in Latvia into a traditional Jewish family, Bloom emigrated to the United States in 1920. Over the course of his life, he embraced mysticism, studied music and mathematics, and got into dissections and autopsies as fodder for his paintings. "Bloom's paintings have a different goal and expose a terrain that we're usually not aware of," Adams writes, "one that's normally hidden from us—not only the internal layering of muscles, fat, cartilage and bone, but also the body's metaphorical interior, the soul. His paintings are a sort of archaeological excavation." continue to blog
Sunday, May 19 at 11AM, Henry Adams, Ruth Coulter Heede Professor of Art History at Case Western Reserve University and lead author of Modern Mystic: The Art of Hyman Bloom, the new monograph from D.A.P. Publishing, will present a lecture on the artist at Sotheby's, New York. Admission to this event, which will take place in Sotheby's seventh-floor bidding room, is free. Book signing to follow. continue to blog
FORMAT: Hbk, 9.25 x 11 in. / 192 pgs / 80 color / 12 b&w. LIST PRICE: U.S. $55.00 LIST PRICE: CANADA $75 GBP £45.00 ISBN: 9781942884392 PUBLISHER: D.A.P. AVAILABLE: 4/23/2019 DISTRIBUTION: D.A.P. RETAILER DISC: TRADE PUBLISHING STATUS: Active AVAILABILITY: Out of stock TERRITORY: WORLD
Published by D.A.P.. Introduction by Debra Bricker Balken. Text by Henry Adams, Marcia Brennan.
“Hyman is awesomely consistent, brilliant, ascetic—more and more people say he is the best painter in America, and so he is.” –Robert Lowell
This important publication, the first of its kind, presents the paintings and drawings of an aesthetic and mystical searcher in the tradition of William Blake, Albert Pinkham Ryder and Odilon Redon, who strove for the moment when, in his own words, “the mood is as intense as it can be made.” Hyman Bloom’s work, influenced by his Jewish heritage (whose impression on his painting he described as a “weeping of the heart”) and Eastern religions, touches on many of the themes of 20th-century culture and art: the body, its immanence and transience, abstraction and spiritual mysticism. Bloom was admired by leading figures in the art world of his time, including Alfred H. Barr Jr. and Dorothy Miller; Jackson Pollock and Willem de Kooning hailed him as “the first Abstract Expressionist.” The poet Robert Lowell praised Bloom, writing in a letter to Elizabeth Bishop, “Hyman is awesomely consistent, brilliant, ascetic—more and more people say he is the best painter in America, and so he is.” The book’s illustrations include ten previously unpublished masterworks, plus images of the figure as powerful and provocative as the paintings by Francis Bacon that were once exhibited alongside them.
Hyman Bloom (1913–2009) was born in Lithuania, now Latvia. He and his family immigrated to the United States in 1920, escaping anti-Semitic persecution. He lived and worked in the Boston area until his death. His work is held in many public collections, including the Museum of Modern Art, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, the Whitney Museum of American Art and others.
