Hyman Bloom

Who was Hyman Bloom?

Hyman Bloom was a painter. His work is influenced by his Jewish heritage, Eastern religions as well as artists including Altdorfer, Grunewald, Caravaggio, Rembrandt, William Blake, Rudolph Bresdin, J.M.W. Turner, John Martin, Chaim Soutine and Denman Ross among many others that he uses to explore themes of the harrowing and the beautiful and glimpses of the supernatural. Many of his works feature macabre subjects such as skeletons or corpses based upon his experience in a morgue and influences including Rembrandt's Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicolaes Tulp 1632, Chaim Soutine's Carcass of Beef, 1925, and have modern day comparisons to Damien Hirst's experiences in a morgue and dissected animal sculptures. Bloom's still life paintings continue to explore the theme of the harrowing and the beautiful creating modern day vanitas paintings featuring Amphora Pottery that was influenced by the Aesthetic Movement and Symbolists. His drawings and paintings of Lubec, Maine woods continue to explore the relationship between the natural and spiritual realms.

Bloom was born into an orthodox Jewish family in the tiny Jewish village of Brunavišķi, in the Bauska District of the Zemgale region of southern Latvia, near the town of Bauska and about 45 miles south of Riga near the Lithuanian border. He emigrated to the United States with his family in 1920, at the age of seven. He lived for most of his life in Boston, Massachusetts and at a young age planned to become a rabbi, but his family could not find a suitable teacher.