This collection is in two parts. The first is from 35mm slides Bill took in 1984 of some of his work. Originally, there were about 750 slides showing about 150 different paintings and drawings ranging in size from 4″x 4″ to 36″x 25″. Many of the slides cut off part of the work or were not centered. Other differences were due to tint and angle. In almost all cases, slides taken of the same object have been eliminated. Sometimes Bill would create a ‘template’ of a particular form and reuse it, altering medium, colors, and lines. Works have been grouped together here, where the similarity in form is apparent. Unfortunately, Bill can’t say which works he wants or doesn’t want displayed, which particular slide he would display, the order in which they are displayed, or whether he would like to emphasize similarity of form. Bill did mail these slides to various places in the hope they would take an interest and display his work, though, so Bill may have supported displaying them here. See part of a draft of his letter below.   Also, Bill selected and sent five slides to an exhibitor who was interested in his work and requested that Bill send him some slides to pick from. Those are the “Special” slides shown in “Slides by Bill”.  In case you have difficulty reading the letter, it says:

‘The works that were on exhibit at The Drawing Center in September of 1982 were just a small sampling of my collected drawings. I am pleased that you and your colleague liked some of them.

Enclosed in this package are some 43 slides, a cross section of my drawings and paintings on paper. They are abstractions both figurative and non-objective. Each has merit of its own. I’ve tried to inject into each work my personal concept of beauty. I hope you approve of my selection.’

The second part of the collection is a selection from 1400 works in Bill’s portfolios that were recently photographed or scanned.  There is even less support for displaying any of these and there are no guidelines for selection. I chose works that I liked and/or thought were interesting or instructive. I divided the photographs into arbitrary categories with some overlap as follows: “Color change”, “Shapes similar to slides”, “Uncategorized”, “Variously dated”, “Paid professional work (possibly)”, “Zodiac, overlays, bulls, sketches”, “Writing tablet drawings”, “Other 5×8 work”,   and “Sculpture”. With the exception of “Color change”, photographs of the same work shown in “Slides by Bill” are not duplicated.

You may notice that some of Bill’s work is unsigned, some signed with initials W/B, some signed with the full name William Blumenfeld or Wm Blumenfeld or W Blumenfeld, and sometimes there are both initials and full name on the same work. In one case the full name appears at the bottom and when the work is turned 180 degrees it appears at the bottom again! When dates exist, some show the year and some just the decade. My guess is that Bill signed much of his work retroactively – perhaps in preparation for an exhibition that his brother Al arranged. I have omitted from the collection many unsigned works whose style looked very different from Bill’s after verifying that several of these were originally made by other artists.

For consistency, borders have been removed from both the slide and photograph sections unless Bill’s signature is in the border. Photoshop was used to straighten the photographic images whose sides were sometimes curved or angled. The “Auto Smart Fix” function was used throughout too. Below is an example of what the photograph looked like before (on left) and after (on right) making these adjustments. After is more rectangular, brighter, and has cropped borders.  (Click on image to expand it.)

In going through these portfolios I was struck by how poor Bill was. Most of the work is on inexpensive sketch pad paper. None of the art is on canvas. The highest quality medium is canvas board – fewer than 10 works are on this. Only one picture is framed. I just discovered an 8×5 inch Writing Tablet that cost 25 cents and contained over 100 pen and ink drawings (see Writing Tablet section).

In most cases the colors on the photographs are different from the colors on the slides of the same work taken 30 years earlier (more about this in “Color change”). Most of the time, the slides cut off up to one quarter of the work. A decision needed to be made as to whether to show the slide or the photograph with more of the work but a color that was different from Bill’s original intent. In almost every case the slide was chosen.

Let me know if you would like to have any of these works (wblumenfeldart@pobox.com). They are free of charge except for mailing costs.  Permission to continue to display them here is assumed. Suggested but not required is a tax deductible donation to The Art Students League of New York where Bill was a life member.