Documentary finds John Bloom ... the ‘lost’ Regionalist

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By Alma Gaul | Tuesday, April 24, 2007 9:37 AM CDT | () comments

Most people in the Quad-Cities are familiar with Isabel Bloom, the late sculptor whose whimsical concrete creations are found throughout area homes and businesses.

Less familiar is Isabel’s husband, John.

He, too, was an artist — painting, sketching, carving and creating lithographs in the Regionalist style and a good friend of the more famous Grant Wood. But he did not market his work as Isabel did, and, for much of his life, he worked quietly as a commercial artist for several Quad-City area manufacturing companies.

Now there is a new documentary film that shines a spotlight on the DeWitt, Iowa, native’s work, and it will debut, appropriately enough, on Thursday at the refurbished DeWitt Opera House Theater.

Titled “John Bloom: The Lost Regionalist,” it is the work of Mick Elliott of the Avolux Media video production company in Moline.

The half-hour documentary is a retrospective of Bloom’s life and a discussion of Regionalist art.

It contains footage of Bloom working on his last mural at the old Moline Post Office (then used as office space by the former Montgomery Elevator Co.) and talking about the casting of “Watching the Ferry,” a bronze sculpture based on a Bloom lithograph that is installed on the Davenport riverfront near the Iowa American Water Co.

Also appearing in the documentary are people who knew Bloom and his work, including Dave Losasso, a Bloom protégé who bought Bloom’s estate and displays hundreds of his pieces, both originals and copies, at his Mississippi Fine Art and John Bloom Gallery in the Village of East Davenport.

Others in the documentary are former Congressman Jim Leach; Julie Jensen McDonald, a Davenport author who wrote about Bloom; Terry Patts, director of the Cedar Rapids Museum of Art, which has a collection of Bloom’s work; and Shirley (Davis) and Bill Homrighausen, DeWitt residents who were friends of both Blooms.

Elliott got started on the documentary some 17 years ago when he read a newspaper article about Bloom working on the post office mural. Mindful of Bloom’s stature — his own work and his association with Grant Wood and Wood’s Stone City art colony — Elliott thought it would be a good idea to begin conducting interviews and shooting footage while Bloom was still alive.

Elliott did not have a specific project in mind when he first broached the subject with Bloom, and he recalls that the then-86-year-old artist “was kind of bemused” at the suggestion.

“Then, any time I was not busy, we’d go over there (to Losasso’s gallery, where Bloom had workspace) and interview and film.” Over the years, Elliott compiled four hours of video.

The documentary also explores Regionalism, which was important because it was the “first really American art form that painted people working,” Elliott said.

It followed Wood’s idea that “people should paint what they know where they’re at,” he explained.

Bloom’s early work reflects his rural upbringing with scenes of farms, fairs and small town life. When he moved to Davenport, river scenes became more prominent. “He was a living embodiment of painting what you know and where you’re at,” Elliott added.

The documentary will have a future beyond Thursday’s showings (at 5:30 and 7:30 p.m. for people who donated to the refurbishing of the theater.)

Elliott intends to bundle a shorter version with an art curriculum that will be available for elementary school teachers.

He also expects a copy will become part of the Smithsonian Institution’s National Postal Museum. Bloom painted murals in both the DeWitt and Tipton, Iowa, post offices as part of the Public Works of Art Project of the Works Progress Administration during the Great Depression, and the documentary can tie in with that aspect of the museum’s displays, he said.

The documentary is sponsored by the nonprofit Open Cities Cinema and is made possible by grants from the Riverboat Development Authority, the Figge Foundation, Lingi-Systems Inc. of East Moline and the Rauch Family Foundation of Rock Island.

Alma Gaul can be contacted at (563) 383-2324 or agaul@qctimes.com.