Ralph Albert Blakelock
Ralph Albert Blakelock (* 15. October 1847 in New York City , New York ; † 9. August 1919 at Elizabethtown , New York ) was an American painter of romanticism .
Life
Unlike other American artists of his time who traveled to Europe for their training and inspiration, Blakelock spent many years of his life in the Wild West , exploring and painting the landscape there. Because of the lack of success, it was not easy for him to support his wife and eight children.
Back in his native New York , he became mentally ill. After he was caught trying to redeem million-dollar bills he had painted himself in banks, he was admitted to a mental institution and diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia . This made Blakelock headlines, and suddenly his paintings were selling better. Most of the remaining twenty years, from 1899 until his death in 1919, Blakelock spent as a patient in this institution.
One of his many moonlight paintings fetched $ 20,000 in 1917, the highest price ever paid for a work by a living American painter at auction . As early as 1916 he had been elected a member ( NA ) of the National Academy of Design .
Typical of Blakelock's paintings are the light that floods everything, especially the moonlight, the contrasts between light and dark surfaces and an extraordinary level of detail.
Blakelock's images play an important role in Paul Auster's novel Moon over Manhattan .
Individual evidence
- ^ JR Davidson: Ralph Albert Blakelock (1847-1919): Psychiatric hospitalization and the abduction of an American landscape artist. In: Journal of medical biography. May 2015, doi : 10.1177 / 0967772015583444 , PMID 26025842 .
- ↑ nationalacademy.org: Past Academicians "B" / Blakelock, Ralph Albert NA 1916 ( Memento of the original dated August 6, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (accessed on June 16, 2015)
Quote
- “The artist is nothing, his art is everything.” - Ralph Albert Blakelock after Glyn Vincent, p. 251
literature
- Glyn Vincent: The Unknown Night. The Genius and Madness of RA Blakelock. To American Painter . Grove Press, New York City 2003, ISBN 0-8021-1734-1 .
- Norman A. Geske: Beyond Madness: The Art of Ralph Blakelock . The University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln, Nebraska, USA 2007.
Web links
- Directory with 856 picture titles, some with pictures in SIRIS, the Smithsonian Institution Research Information System
- Links to numerous pictures at Artcyclopedia
- Six paintings in the Figge Museum, Davenport, Iowa, USA
- Ralph Albert Blakelock in Google Arts & Culture
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Blakelock, Ralph Albert |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | American painter |
| DATE OF BIRTH | October 15, 1847 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | New York City , New York |
| DATE OF DEATH | August 9, 1919 |
| Place of death | at Elizabethtown , New York |