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Live Comments – Curator Robert Cozzolino on Peter Blume at PAFA

By February 7, 2015
Roberta walks through the Peter Blume show at PAFA talking with the show's Curator Robert Cozzolino, who has some great things to say. About the show, Roberta says, Peter Blume's works, which are riveting in reproduction, will stop you in your tracks when you see them in the large and beautifully installed survey at Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts.  
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Accomplished technically (the artist would spend 3 years on one painting), colorful, complex and symbolic, Peter Blume’s works like “The Rock,” “The Eternal City” and “Tasso’s Oak” are edgy visual puzzles. Andrea told you about the works and the show, organized by PAFA Senior Curator and Curator of Modern Art, Robert Cozzolino.

PAFA Curator of Modern Art, Robert Cozzolino. Photo by Shelley Spector
PAFA Curator of Modern Art, Robert Cozzolino. Photo by Shelley Spector

Below are two great audio clips of Cozzolino elucidating. In the first (approximately 7 minutes long) he talks about “The Eternal City,” Blume’s pastiche landscape of Rome under Mussolini that includes an improbable Jack-In-The-Box in the foreground. In the second audio clip (about 3 minutes long) Cozzolino deals with the artist’s process, which is revealed in the many working drawings on view in the show.

Peter Blume, "The Eternal City" (1934‑37), oil on composition board, Museum of Modern Art, NY.
Peter Blume, “The Eternal City” (1934‑37), oil on composition board, Museum of Modern Art, NY.
Peter Blume, "The Rock"  (1945-48), Art Institute of  Chicago.
Peter Blume, “The Rock”  (1945-48), Art Institute of  Chicago.
Peter Blume, "Tasso's Oak," left is the finished painting; right is the full size cartoon drawing of the piece. Installed side-by-side in the PAFA show.
Peter Blume, “Tasso’s Oak,” left is the finished painting; right is the full size cartoon drawing of the piece. Installed side-by-side in the PAFA show.
One of Peter Blume's working drawings for Tasso's Oak.
One of Peter Blume’s working drawings for Tasso’s Oak.

Peter Blume: Nature and Metamorphosis, on view at Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (PAFA) through April 5.

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