Oscar Florianus Bluemner (American, 1867-1938) The Red Ego in a Narrow Plot, 1933 Watercolor on paper laid on paperboard 5 x 7 inches (12.7 x 17.8 cm) (sheet) 7 x 9 inches (17.8 x 22.9 cm) (paperboard) Dated, titled, and indistinctly inscribed on the reverse Property from the Collection of Laura Lee Brown and Steve Wilson PROVENANCE: The artist; Vera Bluemner, the artist's daughter, by descent; Private collection, Great Neck, New York; Andrew Crispo Gallery, New York; Barbara Mathes Gallery, New York; Jack Socolow, New York; Vanderwoude Tannenbaum Gallery, New York; Barbara Mathes Gallery, New York; Acquired by the present owner from the above. Shaped by his training as an architect and his exposure to European Modernism, particularly German Expressionism, Oscar Bluemner was fascinated by color and its formal, spiritual, and emotional properties. Born in Prussia in 1867 to a family of artists and architects, he studied at the Royal Academy of Design in Berlin before immigrating to the United States in 1892. After several years of practicing architecture in Chicago, he returned to New York in 1900. A dispute and subsequent lawsuit over his design for the Bronx Borough Courthouse left him disillusioned with the profession and prompted him to turn to painting. In 1912, Bluemner embarked on a seven-month trip to Europe, where he encountered the work of the Fauvists and Cubists in Paris and explored Expressionism and Futurism in Berlin. He returned to New York with two guiding ideas for his artmaking: art should express the artist's inner consciousness, and color was a means of doing so. For Bluemner, color was intensely symbolic of physiological and emotional qualities, as was shape. Pain, tragedy, love, and life were all certain forms. His paintings brought architectural and natural forms into dialogue, allowing houses, trees, and expanses of sky to suggest relationships beyond the physical landscape. Color was central to this expressive language, particularly his extraordinary use of vermilion, which earned him the nickname "Vermillionaire." So distinctive were his brilliant reds that they became known as "Bluemner red." He associated red with power, vitality, passion, and life; blue with serenity; and green with repose. As he explained, "Every color has a specific effect on our feelings" (J.R. Hayes, Oscar Bluemner, New York, 1991, pp. 122–23). Meticulous studies and technical notes, including the inscriptions on the verso of the present work, offer a glimpse of the thought behind compositions that feel immediate in their emotional force. Bluemner would also compare painting to music in its capacity to communicate directly with the soul, both as a creator and an observer. The Red Ego in a Narrow Plot brings together the concerns that defined Bluemner's mature art: the discipline of architectural form, the expressive possibilities of color, and the belief that a landscape could give visible shape to inner experience. Here, the monumental vermilion house commands the composition, its fiery red walls set against a deep blue sky and the cool turquoise-green foliage. The contrast is at once visually arresting and psychologically charged. The house becomes more than architecture: it is a declaration of presence, vitality, and selfhood, while the surrounding trees and darkened landscape suggest a world beyond the individual. Bluemner described his artistic vision as one of "large vermilion shapes hard by the serene blue of our American sky" (as quoted in Oscar Bluemner in Retrospect, exh. cat., Minneapolis, Minnesota, 1939, n.p.), an approach that finds particularly compelling expression in the present work. Its power lies in the tension between those carefully considered elements and the feeling they evoke. HID12401132022 © 2026 Heritage Auctions | All Rights Reserved www.HA.com/TexasAuctioneerLicenseNotice

The artist; Vera Bluemner, the artist’s daughter, by descent; Private collection, Great Neck, New York; Andrew Crispo Gallery, New York; Barbara Mathes Gallery, New York; Jack Socolow, New York; Vanderwoude Tannenbaum Gallery, New York; Barbara Mathes Gallery, New York; Acquired by the present owner from the above.

Condition report available upon request. Laid on 7 x 9 inch board. Matted and framed under glass.
Framed Dimensions 13.5 X 15.5 Inches