Stripper's Guide

Blum, Helen Abrahams:
Artist; b. Aug. 17, 1886, Phila., Pa.; d. Simon and Theresa Abrahams; ed. Public and high schools (awarded four year scholarship); School of Design for Women, Phila.; Academy of Fine Arts; m. Alex A. Blum, Jan. 17, 1917, Phila., Pa. Exhibited at Phila. Art Club, Water Color Show, 1909; portraits purchased by William Chase (noted artist and teacher); 1910, won second Water Color Prize at Wanamaker Exhibit; Still life picture in oil purchased by permanent collection of Fellowship of Academy Fine Arts, 1915; exhibited in various galleries throughout country. Designed scenery and costumes for Little Theatre Movement; managed, staged and acted in various religious orgs, in Phila.; participated in many artistic pageants and plays. Author of a short story, numerous articles, etc. Fellow: Penna. Academy Fine Arts. Member: Rodolph Shalom Sisterhood; Internatl. Peace Movement. Address: 3303 Queen Lane, Germantown, Pa.

…Around 1938, [Alex] Blum signed on with the Eisner-Iger shop; it was an association that lasted until 1954. The artist’s daughter, Audrey (“Toni”) Blum Bossert, also joined the team in 1938 as a scriptwriter.3…

…During World War II Mrs. Bossert was a nurse’s aide at Bellevue, worked with service men’s wives for the American Association for the United Nations, and studied story writing at Columbia University. Her friends were other wives whose husbands were in service.

…Before her marriage, Mrs. Bossert did some acting at a Summer theater near Newburgh, radio work on dramatic programs, and extra work for a movie company in New York. She says “I didn’t have success, but I did have lots of fun.”

Pacific Area: Bossert, William T., capt.; Mrs. Audrey A. Bossert, 60 E. 94th st.

…Last April as a member of the Pleasantville Players, she played the lead in “The Women” by Clare Booth Luce, presented for the benefit of the Westchester Mental Hygiene Association. Rehearsals took almost two months. Once a week she meets with a sketch group and is teaching herself to draw from her husband’s old anatomy book.

Mrs. Bossert entertains friends and their husbands at her home frequently. She advises others in similar circumstances to do the same. She finds activities with others more satisfying than trying to entertain herself.

…This Summer she has been busy taking her own and neighbors’ children to the pool and visiting her parents, Mr. and Mrs. Alex Blum of Rye. Mr. Blum is a well known painter and etcher. Mrs. Bossert also spends hours talking with adolescent children who drop in to see her about their problems.

The big question facing her now is next Winter. “I’m scared of it,” she admits. With Tommy in kindergarten, and baby-sitters to stay with Jill, she hopes to get into school activities, participate in civic affairs, and continue the art and drama group work.

Alex Aladar Blum of 2060 Eighty-third street, Brooklyn, is showing until November 6 in the Print Gallery, above Ehrlch’s, on Fifth avenue, Manhattan, about two score etchings, this being his first exhibition in Greater New York. He is only 26 years old, and yet his works exhibit both the delicacy and strength of men far older than he. Moreover he shows that he is open to tho most modern influences, such as those of the French school, instanced by Matisse, although he taboos the ultra tendencies of that school. The collection is singularly interesting, in that it shows Mr. Blum’s development in various phases of the art of etching. While he is master of expressive drawing and modeling, he evinces, especially in his latest work, a gift for suggesting light and color and rhythm, in the latter using the slightest means for producing large results.

More than mere cleverness is revealed in the “Rhythm of line; a sequence,” as he terms nine examples. In them he gives a feeling as of music, and all by the use of the line. Perhaps the most beautiful in the nine etchings is “The Wave,” lines in a cure of grace passing across the picture and, in various well composed attitudes, accompanying the wave is a number of nudes. “The Comet” is also striking, with nudes posed as though mounting upward in a curved course, while effect in opposition is given by lines curved in the background. In the same category are “Nudes,” “The Lake,” “Mother and Child,” a peculiarly interesting composition; “Bathers,” “Hills and Lake,” “The Castles" and “The Dance,” in which the interfering line of the main motive has a stimulant effect to the eye.

Many of Mr. Blum’s etchings of fact were done in Boston and other parts of Massachusetts. He knows exactly where to be delicate and atmospheric, as in “On the Beach,” the frontal of tho Boston Public Library, “Copp’s Hill,” “Brewer Fountain.” “Pigeons,” “Revere Bench” and “Bath Beach.” Also, he knows where to be a faithful reporter, as in the on board ship “Halting Hooks” (two examples), “T Wharf,” the Paul Revere house, and in “Tho Two Giants,” a capital presentation of the Brooklyn and Manhattan bridges. He also knows emphatically, how to bring out character, as in the two examples termed “Ghetto,” with a man and a woman as excitedly engaged in bargaining as in a bazar in an Oriental city; furthermore, in a lovely “Study,” a young girl at her books; “Mother and Baby,” “Apple Mary,” “The Pretzel Vendor” and “Old Woman.” Two studies in dry point show soft and velvety blacks, and distinctive are two roulette works, “Danseuso” and “Roof Garden.”

Mr. Blum was born in Cincinnati, Ohio [sic], in 1889, and after visiting Europe he returned to the art school in his native city. Later he was a pupil at the National Academy of Design, where he won first prize for etching and a bronze medal for drawing. For a time he taught at the Boston Art School.

Working on a newspaper during the day, Mr. Blum did some oil painting and etching before becoming involved with a theater group. He designed a stage set for one production and at the theater he met an attractive costume designer. “We were co-workers, both young, and—you know—one thing led to another.” Mr. Blum married the former Helen Abrahams in 1917.

…It is further ordered, upon consideration of the petition of the said, Aldar [sic], that his name be, and hereby is, changed to Alex Blum, under authority of the provisions of section 6 of the act approved June 29, 1906...

Then early in the depression, when, as he says, “things were awkward for artists”, Mr. Blum became art director of Classic Magazine, a position he held until after World War II.

Blum, Alex A.— Etcher, P.
287 Rye Beach Ave., Rye, N.Y.
B. Budapest, Hungary. Feb. 7, 1889. Studied: NAD; Cincinnati A. Acad. Awards: prize. NAD. 1924. Work: MMA; LC; Yale Univ.; BMFA; Weslcyan Col.

Alexander Blum, 80, a noted artist, of 287 Rye Beach Ave., died on Friday at United Hospital.

Mr. Blum, was born in Budapest Feb. 7, 1889, the son of the late Alexander, and Rose Blum.

He moved to Cincinnati with his family before he was 10. He had won three prizes in art by the time he was 13 and attended the Cincinnati Art Academy. He moved to New York and became a reporter on the old New York World and attended the National Academy of Design at night.

In Boston he continued as a daytime reporter and did free lance etching at night. He and his wife the former Miss Helen Abrahams, moved to Great Neck, Long Island where the artist became art director of Classic Magazine until after World War II.

Mr. and Mrs. Blum moved to Rye 23 years ago in order that the artist might paint in quiet, scenic surroundings.

In addition to his wife, Mr. Blum is survived by a daughter, Mrs. Audrey Bossert of Pleasantville; a son, Robert Blum of Deerfield, Ill.; five grandchildren and a sister, Mrs. Hedwig Bleier of New York.