Julius Thiengen Bloch (1888-1966) emigrated from Germany with his parents when he was five and settled in Philadelphia. His mother recognized, and encouraged, his artistic talents. He attended the School of the Pennsylvania Museum and Industrial Art (now The University of the Arts), the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts (PAFA) where he studied with Thomas Anshutz, and the school at the Barnes Foundation.

His early paintings were frequently still lifes, but his experiences of the effects of the Depression upon the working classes, and in particular the Black community, which also faced racial discrimination, led him to become a leading social realist artist depicting them with dignity.

For many years he taught at PAFA, and his message to students was that you need to know life in order to paint life.

“Still Life of Fruit”, 1922.

Oil on canvas, 28 by 22 inches.

$3,500