Stella Bloch

Stella Bloch
Bloch in 1919 or 1920
Born	18 December 1897 Tarnau, Austria-Hungary
Died	20 January 1999(1999-01-20) (aged 101) Bethel, Connecticut, U.S.
Nationality	American
Other names	Stella Coomaraswamy
Spouse(s)	Ananda Coomaraswamy Edward Eliscu
Children	2 sons

Stella Bloch or Stella Coomaraswamy (18 December 1897 – 20 January 1999) was an American artist, dancer and journalist. She headlined as a dancer in Rochester, New York. She also worked as an artist and her work is in several collections.

Bloch was born in Tarnów in Austria-Hungary's kingdom of Galicia & Lodomeria (now Tarnów, Poland), because her mother Charlotte returned from New York City to give birth on 18 December 1897. Her family was Jewish. Stella was brought up on East 54th Street in Manhattan with her mother; her aunt and uncle, Bernard and Pauline Offner and her cousins Richard and Mortimer Offner.

Bloch was said to have been the first student in America of Isadora Duncan's six dancers who were known as the Isadorables. She met Ananda Coomaraswamy who took her to India at the age of 17. She spent some time in India. She spent a year learning Javanese dancing at the palace of the Prince of Solo in Surakarta in Java. Bloch also started using her journalist and artistic skills by sketching the dancers at the Art Students League in New York.

Bloch demonstrated her dancing in America. She was at the top of the bill at the Eastman Theatre in Rochester, New York. Bloch became Coomaraswamy's third wife in 1922. The same year she published Dancing and the Drama East and West which included some of her drawings and an introduction by her husband. The book was able to compare the different dance heritages of eastern as well as western cultures because she had studied them whilst touring not only Java but also India, Bali, Cambodia, China and Japan. During the 1920s she sketched and painted scenes as part of the Harlem Renaissance which also included portraits of Bessie Smith, Josephine Baker and Thelonious Monk. In 1930, she and her first husband, Ananda Coomaraswamy, divorced. She had been based in New York and he was working at the Boston Museum of Art so they had not been living in the same city.