Additional Images

Provenance:

Private Collection, Ontario

Note:

Mostly known for his panoramic landscapes of Jerusalem and the Dead Sea, Rose Garden, 1937 by Ludwig Blum presents a rare verdant view of an otherwise mostly monochromatic terrain. Born in Morovia, Czechoslovakia in 1891, Blum left school at the age of 17 to pursue painting in Vienna. His pursuit of painting would abruptly pause in 1914, when he was drafted into the Austrian Army during the First World War. After the war, Blum attended the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague. However, it was in Jerusalem, where the artist immigrated in 1923 during the Third Aliyah, that Blum’s career blossomed. Entranced by a landscape so aesthetically foreign to that of his native Moravia, Blum began feverishly documenting his surroundings.

Rose Garden, 1937 reveals a more intimate view of the artist’s surroundings. Rather than depicting the larger cityscape of Jerusalem, Blum presents the viewer with a lush garden scene that emanates with sumptuous pink roses. In doing so, he creates a scene that is widely legible in the larger canon of art history whilst rare in the artist’s oeuvre.