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Oscar Florianus Bluemner comes from Hanover, Germany. His father was an architect who had built up a nice practice in Italianate brick churches in the south Tryol. At the age of 18, Oscar Bluemner gave his first portraoit exhibition in Berlin shortly afterward won medals at the Royal Academy where he was studying painting and architecture. In 1892 an artistic argument with the All Highest, Wilhem II, caused him to leave Germany suddenly for the U.S. For two years he lived in Bowery flophouses, working as a bartender when he could, selling packets of needles on the sidewalk at other times. Then came a wave of prosperity. Hi resumed his profession of architect, practicing fro 20 years in an office on Manhattan's 42nd Street. As a painter he exhibited in the Armory Show of 1913 [[strikethrough]] that introduced Matisse, [[/strikethrough]]...Since 1929 the White ey Museum has bought three of his canvases. Fourty-three years in the U.S. have not chanted an accent that would make the fortune of any German comedian. His enormous Gladstone collars generally have the patina of an ancient manuscript. He hates beds and regular meals, cooks what he wants when he is hungry and slpps on the attic floor rolled up in a blanket...He knows Goethe's Faust by heart, writes and speaks Latin fluently discourses familiarly on the philosophy of Nietzsche, Spengler, hates beer. With the great of gust and good humor he ceaselessly tried to explain his theories of the emotional value of color, and in particular his fondness for brilliant reds. Slow-witted listeners generally retire baffled content that the "vermillionaire's" colors, whatever they may mean, are pure, shrewdly chosen and form most decorative patterns.
from a review in Time, Jan. 14, 1935