June Blum

June Blum (born Maspeth, New York, in 1929) is an American artist.

She was born in Maspeth, New York, in 1929,^[1] where she was raised mostly by her mother, Elsie Sally Druiett (d. 1983),^[1] because her father, Henry Charles Druiett died in December 1941 at the age of 41.^[1] June was a multi-discipline feminist artist who produced paintings, sculptures, prints, light shows, happenings, jewelry, art books, pottery, conceptual documentations, and drawing, and advanced the women's movement. ^[1] Her husband, Maurice C. Blum (d. 1985), was a businessman, poet, and avid photographer who documented the women’s art movement.^[1] In her Feminist Artist Statement Blum states that although she was not receiving attention from critics for her light environments and paintings she always performed to a full audience which showed that her work was capable of changing public opinion towards patriarchy in America.^[1] According to Blum, "The art community was quiet on the subject at that time, but one critic gave it a small mention," showing that critics did not pay attention to her shows but the public did.

In 2011, Blum won the Veteran Feminists of America artist of the month.^[2] In her article she notes Betty Friedan as her main inspiration and shares her experience of painting and photographing Friedan at her apartment across from the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts.^[2]

Education

Blum studied at Brooklyn College, Pratt Graphic Art Center, The Art Students League, Craft Students League, and The New School for Social Research. At the Brooklyn Museum Art School, she studied with Reuben Tam, Tom Doyle, and Ruben Kadish, among others. Her first solo art exhibition was at the Hicks Street Gallery, Brooklyn, in 1965.^[3]

Work and political activism

Blum coordinated "Works on Paper/Women Artists" at the Brooklyn Museum (1975),^[4] an exhibition that supported women artists.^[5] Among her conceptual documentations during the 1970s were The Female Connection^[6] and A Woman’s Space. She traveled with the support of the "Rent an Artist" program, which was sponsored by the American Federation of Arts. Blum demonstrated and lectured on light and light shows in Nassau County schools and elsewhere. She painted Betty Friedan for the "Sister Chapel" (premiered at P.S.1 in 1978) and sat for a portrait by Alice Neel (1972).^[3] She created "time-light-space-environment events," starting with The First Female President at the North Shore Community Arts Center in Great Neck, New York in 1968-1969.^[7]

As Curator of Contemporary Art at the Suffolk Museum, Stony Brook, N.Y. (1971–1975), she created the exhibit Unmanly Art, the first in-house Museum-curated exhibit of women artists (1971–1972). Blum also coordinated Works on Paper, a show for women artists at the Brooklyn Museum (1975), and began a series of portraits of women prominent in feminist circles, including Alice Neel and Betty Friedan (painted in 1977 as part of the Sister Chapel project). In 1975 she formed Women Artists Living in Brooklyn, and was a juror for the exhibit Washington to Washington, held at the National Museum of Women in the Arts. In 1980, Blum formed the East Central Women's Caucus for Art, and initiated women's exhibits around the country. She created Women for Art to publish catalogs, and was a member of the N.Y. Professional Women Artists group. In addition, she was an original artist and member of the all-women Central Hall Artists Gallery. She was awarded the Medal of Honor in 2003 for her role in advancing the study of women in the arts.^[8]

References