Here’s an artist who is still head and shoulders above everyone else.
Jonathan Blum, known as much for his whimsical forehead portraits as he is for his storefront studio on Fifth Ave. in Park Slope, will host a major retrospective of his work on Saturday with hundreds of pieces that he’s sold over the past 35 years.
The show doubles as Blum’s 50th birthday party, which makes sense given that Blum errs on the side of fun not formality.
“A kid comes into my studio the other day and he looks around and says, ‘So you do kids paintings for adults,'” Blum says. “I thought, ‘Hey, that’s not a bad way of putting it.'”
Blum indeed started as a cartoonist, offering his first works in 1986 for Stuff Magazine when he was a student at the Museum School of Fine Arts in Boston. Even then, Blum only painted people’s faces above the eyes. He’s since branched out to putting things on top of people’s heads. And sometimes he paints people’s noses. And once in a while an upper lip creeps into one of Blum’s instantly recognizable works.
“It started out as a funny way to paint people, but then a family commissioned me out of the blue to paint them with their favorite food on top of their heads, so that’s where that came from.”
Blum’s initial success came when he lived in Washington, D.C. after college, cranking out forehead paintings of Bert and Ernie and selling them, along with many others, at the Eastern Market.
When he finally decided to move on from painting the candy-colored “Sesame Street” characters, it sent such shockwaves that one local paper declared, “Blum breaks up with Bert.”
Blum moved to New York in the late 1990s and branched into more foreheads: rabbis, animals, famous people. But he still personally stood by his works, whether selling on the street in Soho or the Meatpacking District or out of the Fifth Ave. storefront emblazoned with the words, “Inspired and poignant work; everyone should own one” on the window.
The quote is from Blum’s mom.
“I’ve never changed my model of selling directly to people,” he says. “I’ve sold about 10,000 paintings over the years, almost all in face-to-face sales. People hug me in the street.”
One “hugger,” who started with a Bert 30 years ago, but now owns three Blums, said the artist’s work is “full of humor without being schlocky.”
“Some of his trademarks – like the “from the nose” up portraits – would be novelties in the hand of a lesser artist,” said collector Kurt Hirsch. “But Blum’s are always fresh and fun.
“And, as Neil Young would say, Blum’s pieces have staying power. I bought my first Blums more than a quarter century ago, but guests visit and never cease to comment favorably on his pieces while ignoring other paintings hanging nearby,” Hirsch added.
Some of those works will be back for Saturday’s show, including Blum’s favorite, “Bert Leaves Eastern Market” and his portrait of then D.C. political powerhouse Marion Barry that is much loved (by everyone but Barry).
“He came to the opening and thought the portrait was making fun of him,” Blum says. “It’s not! It was totally respectful.”
“Fifty Years of Jonathan Blum: A Retrospective,” ShapeShifter Lab, 18 Whitwell Pl. between Carroll and First Sts., opens June 27, 7 p.m.-1 a.m. For info, visit www.jonathanblumportraits.com.
