Adolph (Adolphe) Blondheim, an influential New Hope Modernist, won many prizes for his paintings but complained that they were difficult to sell: "I've got the biggest collection of Blondheims in the world," he joked. Blondheim painted in oils and watercolors in a style that was non-objective; his paintings are often flat, collage-like experiments with shapes and layers, and his etchings and lithographs are semi-abstract.

He was a student of the Maryland Institute of Fine Arts, and later at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts.  In 1913, he married Rosa DeYoung, a niece of modernist writer Gertrude Stein, and they moved to Provincetown, Massachusetts.  He was in the military in 1918 (Camouflage Corps, 24th Engineers).

After teaching positions in the South and Midwest and several trips abroad, the Blondheims moved to New Hope in the summer of 1929 and were Bucks County, Pennsylvania residents for over twenty-five years.

Blondheim was a member of the New Group and its offspring, the Independents.  He painted large-scale works for display in public buildings, such as his 10' x 20' painting of Vanquois Heights, a battle scene, which hangs in the Missouri State House, but he also interpreted local

Bucks County scenes, such as New Hope's "odd little train station".

Submitted by Scott Wilder, art historian from Olathe, Kansas.

Source is the James A. Michener Art Museum | 138 S. Pine St., Doylestown, PA 18901