Now up and ready in the gallery: A 75-Year Retrospective of Works on Paper by Seattle-born Abe Blashko. Included are some of his earliest, most bizarre images including The Puppet, Le Miserable, and The Man Who Laughs, all 1939. Three pastels from the Ratmen Series (including The Golem) are show as well as drawings from his 1995 publication, Saint Mark's Place. Also included are political images; there is an especially biting Cheney With a Spare Heart, 2008.
Blashko (born 1920) is largely self-taught. Inspired by the Mexican muralists, he created a body of work reflecting the world and its foibles. After coming to New York City in 1943 he made a career in illustration and was a contributor to The New Masses. The drawing Judge Reading, 1937, appeared in The New Yorker magazine, December 22/29, 1997. Blashko taught at the Newark School of Fine and Industrial Art, New Jersey, from 1988 to 1991.
In addition to the Seattle Art Museum and Syracuse University, work by Abe Blashko is in the collections of the Portland Art Museum, Oregon; the Wolfsonian Museum, Miami Beach; the Library of Congress and the National Gallery of Art; the Columbus Museum of Art; the Davis Museum and Cultural Center, Wellesley College; the Nora Eccles Harrison Museum of Art, Utah State University; and University College, London.
__2.jpg "Cheney with a Spare Heart, 2008")
