Norman Bluhm (b. 1920 in Chicago, IL) attended the Armour Institute of Technology (now the Illinois Institute of Technology) and studied architecture under Mies van der Rohe. After serving in the Second World War, he decided not to continue his architectural studies and instead began to study art. First, he attended the Accademia di Belle Arte in Florence, Italy and afterward, the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris, France.
During his lifetime, Bluhm’s work was the subject of solo exhibitions at Washburn Gallery, New York, NY; Riva Yares Gallery, Scottsdale, AZ; Zolla-Lieberman Gallery, Chicago, IL; Corcoran Gallery, Washington, D.C.; Leo Castelli Gallery, New York, NY and Paul Kantor Gallery, Los Angeles, CA. He was also included in numerous group exhibitions at such venues as the Newport Harbor Art Museum, Newport, CA; Worcester Art Museum, Worcester, MA; Albright-Knox Gallery, Buffalo, NY; the National Museum of American Art, Washington, D.C.; the Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY; the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, NY; the Carnegie Institution, Washington, D.C.; Galerie Stadler, Paris, France; The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, CA; and The Parrish Art Museum, among others.
His work may be found in such permanent collections as the Albright-Knox Gallery, Buffalo, NY; the Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto, Canada; The Butler Institute of American Art, Youngstown, OH; the Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; the Dallas Museum of Fine Arts, Dallas, TX; the Denver Art Museum, Denver, CO; the High Museum of Art, Atlanta, GA; the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY; The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, CA; The Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY; the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, Australia; the National Museum of Wales, Cardiff, Wales; the Newark Museum of Art, New York, NY; the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C.; and the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY.
Norman Bluhm died in 1999 at the age of 78 in East Wallingford, VT.