Gustave Blache III
| Gustave Blache III | |
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| Born | 1977 |
| Alma mater | BFA, School of Visual Arts (Savannah, GA); MFA, School of Visual Arts (New York) |
| Notable work | Series Works include: Leah Chase Series (2010), Self-Portraits (2000-2008) Mop Makers Series (2006), Curtain Cleaner Series (2003), Still Life (2002-2003, Portraits (2000-2001) |
| Website | gustaveblache |
Gustave Blache III is an American figurative artist from New Orleans, Louisiana, currently residing in Brooklyn, New York. He is best known for his works in series that highlight the process and unique labors of everyday society.
Gustave Blache III was born in San Bernardino, California in 1977. In 1983 he moved to New Orleans, Louisiana. While in elementary school, Blache was invited to study twice a week at the New Orleans Museum of Art (NOMA). Drawing pictures of plaster casts and painting copies of Old Masters provided an early understanding of the Old Masters who influence his work today.
Blache attended the New Orleans Center for Creative Arts (N.O.C.C.A.), a selective visual and performing arts high school with notable alumni such as jazz musicians Branford, Winton and Jason Marsalis and actor Wendell Pierce. From 1994-1998, he attended the School of Visual Arts in Savannah, Georgia, a satellite campus of New York’s School of Visual Arts. Upon receiving his Bachelor of Fine Arts from the School of Visual Arts (Savannah), Blache moved to New York to attend the School of Visual Arts main campus, where he earned an MFA in May 2000.
In Savannah, Blache gained recognition for his life-size figurative paintings. This led to him receiving several commissions, reviews, and a book cover. Savannah author Aberjhani featured Blache’s painting, The Art Spirit, as the original cover for his book, I Made My Boy Out of Poetry. The Art Spirit paid homage to one of Blache's influences, artist Robert Henri. The painting contains the book written by Robert Henri entitled The Art Spirit in the bottom right corner which is left untethered by a belt that is used to tie other books beneath into a bundle.
While in graduate school in New York, Blache transitioned from the large life-size format on canvas and began working on small Masonite scraps that fellow students would discard originally as a cost cutting measure. This change in format would then become smaller wood scraps that Blache would get from various lumber yards in Manhattan but he has since transitioned to painting on custom wood panels that he has specially prepared. The much smaller and intimate format suited him well. Blache liked the idea of bringing the viewer closer to his smaller pocket-sized paintings versus the greater distance viewers once needed to view his large life-sized canvases. This new size was first displayed at his thesis show at the Tribeca Art Club in the spring of 2000. This was a period of transition for Blache, not just in scale and surface, but in subject matter too. He declined doing commissioned portraits (a practice that he still abides by today) and would only work with sitters of his choosing. Blache's Brooklyn loft, in the Bushwick neighborhood became the background and setting for friends and former classmates to model for him. This group of paintings would be used in Blache's first solo show in New York.
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