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Evening Tones
From the collection of Smithsonian American Art Museum. Free to download, adapt and use — no permission needed.
About this work
Evening Tones abstracts a landscape along the Hudson River into a vibrant range of colors. Bluemner came to the United States to escape Germany's conservatism, hoping to find the freedom to try new ideas. After years of struggling in his architectural practice, he turned to painting, throwing himself into the exciting theories of modern art that were making their way across the Atlantic from Europe. But in the climate of World War I, foreign painters and foreign ideas were suspect. A critic reviewing Bluemner's work in 1915 avowed that his art was "utterly alien to the American idea of democracy."
Smithsonian American Art Museum’s own descriptionSubjects
Credit lineEvening Tones. 1911-1917. Oscar Bluemner, born Prenzlau, Germany 1867-died South Braintree, MA 1938. Smithsonian American Art Museum, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of James F. Dicke II and museum purchase made possible by the American Art Forum, the Julia D. Strong Endowment and the Luisita L. and Franz H. Denghausen Endowment. CC0.
