Winter in the Dead Wood

Artist Albert Bloch (American, 1882 - 1961)

Date1934-1938

MediumOil on canvas

DimensionsUnframed: 30 1/8 × 36 1/8 inches (76.52 × 91.76 cm)
Framed: 36 3/8 × 42 1/2 × 2 1/4 inches (92.39 × 107.95 × 5.72 cm)

Credit LineGift of Mrs. Albert Bloch

Object numberF97-14/2

SignedSigned with monogram and dated lower center: / 1934

On View

Not on view

Collections

American Art

Terms

DescriptionThe painting is a mountainous winter landscape dominated by pale green, ochres, browns and whites. In the right foreground is a group of tree stumps and in the middleground a stand of truncated dead trees. A large crow perches on a branch in the center of the composition and another crow is silhouetted against the pale green sky. A steep mountain appears in the background at the left. A rose-colored sun sets over a hill in the upper right.Exhibition History

Exhibition History

First National Exhibition of American Art, Municipal Art Committee (New York), May 18–July 1, 1936, no. 494.

Albert Bloch: Selected Paintings and Drawings, Goethe House, New York, December 3, 1963–January 6, 1964, no. 9.

Albert Bloch: Ein amerikanischer Blauer Reiter, 1882–1961, Städtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus, Munich, Germany, November 1964–August 1965 (traveled), no. 16 (as Winter in Toten Wald).

Exhibition of Paintings and Drawings by Albert Bloch, Pembroke-Country Day School, Kansas City, MO, April 4–29, 1966, oils, no. 2.

Albert Bloch, 1882–1961, Wichita Art Association, KS, December 1969–January 1970, oils, no. 10.

Albert Bloch, 1882–1961, an American Expressionist: Paintings, Drawings, Prints, Munson-Williams-Proctor Institute, Utica, N.Y., February 3–March 3, 1974, no. 27.

Albert Bloch Memorial Exhibition, University of Kansas, Lawrence, April 2–22, 1978, no. 13.

Albert Bloch: Blaue Reiter Artist in the Midwest, Retrospective Exhibition, 1911–1958: Oils, Watercolors, Drawings, William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, Kansas City, MO, October 8– November 5, 1978, no. 13.

Albert Bloch: The American Blue Rider, Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, January 26–December 7, 1997 (traveled), no. 36.

Bingham to Benton: The Midwest as Muse, Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, February 5–July 31, 2005, no cat.

Gallery Label

After returning to the United States from Germany in 1922, Albert Bloch became the head professor of drawing and painting at the University of Kansas in Lawrence. He painted Winter in the Dead Wood early in his 25-year tenure there. Rendered with a stark palette, this bleak winter landscape suggests haunting desolation and Bloch's own pessimistic world view. The scene depicted within its thick, encrusted surface evokes not only bitter cold, but also memory and loss. Bloch titled the painting after a poem by Austrian poet Karl Kraus (1874-1936) written in protest of World War I. Lacking explicit references to war, the painting may, nonetheless, reflect obliquely Bloch's horror at the rise of Hitler as well as the despondent mood of Depression-era America.

Provenance

Albert Bloch;

To Mrs. Albert Bloch (widow of the artist), Lawrence, KS, 1961;

To The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 1997.

Published References

“All America Represented in New York’s First National Show; with Complete List of the Exhibitors,” Art Digest 10 (June 1936), 35.

First National Exhibition of American Art, exh. cat. (New York: City of New York Municipal Art Committee, 1936), 17.

“Nelson Gallery Exhibits Painting by Albert Bloch,” Kansas City Star, November 3, 1944, 16.

Albert Bloch: Selected Paintings and Drawings, exh. cat. (New York: Goethe House, 1963), unpaginated.

Albert Bloch: ein amerikanischer Blauer Reiter, 1882–1961, exh. cat. (Bonn: Amerikanische Botschaft, Kulturabteilung, 1964), unpaginated (as Winter in Toten Wald).

“Versprengte Blaue Reiter,” Münchner Merkur, December 2, 1964, clipping, NAMA curatorial files.

Albert Bloch, 1882–1961, exh. cat. (Wichita, Kans.: Wichita Art Association, 1969), unpaginated.

Jonas Kover, “Fears, Frustrations and Inhumanity Portrayed in Bloch Exhibit at M-W-P,” Observer Dispatch (Utica, N.Y.), February 12, 1974, 29.

“Albert Bloch (1882–1961) an American Expressionist,” Munson-Williams-Proctor Institute Bulletin, February 1974, unpaginated.

“Albert Bloch (1882–1961): An American Expressionist,” Connoisseur 186 (May 1974), 60.

Albert Bloch, 1882–1961, an American Expressionist: Paintings, Drawings, Prints, exh. cat. (Utica, N.Y.: Museum of Art, Munson-Williams-Proctor Institute; Clinton, N.Y.: Edward D. Root Art Center, Hamilton College, 1974), 10, 14.

Maria Schuchter, “Albert Bloch,” Ph.D. diss., Universität Innsbruck, 1991, 95–96, 133.

Werner Mohr, “Albert Bloch as Caricaturist, Social Critic, To Mrs. Albert Bloch (widow of the artist), Lawrence, Kans., 1961; and Authorized Translator of Karl Kraus in America,” Ph.D. diss., University of Kansas, 1994, 254, 261n38, fig. 72.

Frank Baron, ed., German Poetry in War and Peace: A Dual-Language Anthology, trans. Albert Bloch (Lawrence: Max Kade Center for German Studies, University of Kansas, 1995), xxi, xxvi, 103.

David Cateforis, “Albert Bloch: The American Blue Rider,” American Art Review 9 (January–February 1997), 130, 135.

David Conrads, “Major American Artist Resurfaces in Kansas City,” Christian Science Monitor, February 27, 1997, 10.

Henry Adams, Margaret C. Conrads, and Annegret Hoberg, eds., Albert Bloch: The American Blue Rider, exh. cat. (Munich: Prestel-Verlag, in association with Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art and Städtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus, 1997), 49–50, 81, 211, pl. 36.

Annegret Hoberg and Henry Adams, eds., Albert Bloch: Ein amerikanischer Blauer Reiter (Munich: Prestel-Verlag, in association with Städtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus, 1997), 49–50, 81, 211, pl. 36.

Frank Baron, Helmut Arntzen, and David Cateforis, eds., Albert Bloch: Artistic and Literary Perspectives (Munich: Prestel-Verlag, in association with Max Kade Center for German-American Studies, University of Kansas, 1997), 158.

Julie Aronson, “New at the Nelson: Two Paintings by Albert Bloch Donated,” Calendar of Events (Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art), March 1998, 2.

Randall R. Griffey, “Bingham to Benton: The Midwest as Muse,” American Art Review 17 (April 2005), 100–101.

Margaret C. Conrads, ed. The Collections of the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art: American Paintings to 1945 (Kansas City, Mo.: The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 2007), 1: 150–53, 2: 72–73.

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