Dreaming

Oscar Bluemner, born in Germany in 1867, emigrated to the United States in 1892, the same year he won the Royal Medal in Germany for his painting of an architectural subject. Having studied to be an architect, his early artworks often depict designs for buildings. This architectural thread ran throughout his career as a painter, his works often defined by black outline and clearly delineated shapes of saturated color. In 1915, Bluemner's one-man show at Alfred Stieglitz's 291 gallery formally established the artist as a pioneer of early American Modernism. Reducing details and simplifying forms, Bluemner was able to achieve line and color that created an aesthetic harmony uniquely his own. In the present work, the artist has added further details rarely seen in his works, including a three masted ship in the lower right corner and a lighthouse in the distance. Light angles off the moon into misty clouds and reflects on the water as sea and sky diffuse into each other with an expanse of blue. Evocative of some of Bluemner's most poignant works, Dreaming is a superb realization of subject, mood, and color.

A preparatory drawing and notes for the present work are in the artist's diaries, dated August 1924.