[Bleich
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Galley Directory | Home Page]| That I paint the sea is not by choice or chance but a calling that I answer with joyful creativity. I have painted on location the lengths of both of America's coastlines, the shores of Europe, and islands throughout the world. Like my sea captain father, I went to sea at 15 years of age. This was done to help support my widowed mother and two sisters. I sailed professionally for 12 years. On my first blue water trip, I logged time time on a 117-ft. Motorsailer, the Vagrant, sailing to Bermuda and back. Due to a tropical depression, we encountered mountainous storm seas on the trip back. The fire we had in the engine room and the ensuing bucket brigade added to the excitment of that trip. Two years were spent before the mast on Mrs. Palmer's109-ft. schooner, the Guinevere, sailing down east to Newfoundland, battling the occassional Nor-Easter that one is prone to find off the Grand Banks. An enjoyable summer was spent on Walter Gubbleman's 71-ft. yawl, the Windigo, exploring New England. Working on Payson's Saga out of Falmouth Forside in Maine was another pleasurable location that I would return to as I grew fond of Maine and it's people. Later, I returned to paint former ports of call as skipper of my own yawl, the Pipedream, which I owned for seven years. |
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and the Medal awarded posthumously. |
Having survived numerous dangerous sailing experiences in mid-ocean, added to my respect and humility when dealing with the awesome power of the sea. Battling Nor Easters in the cold Labrador currents of Newfoundland was very diffrent from the steep tropical storm seas that would kick up so rapidly in the warmth of the Gulf Stream, Bermuda, the Bahamas and the Caribbean. Painting the sea was a challenge that required discipline to master. My involvement with the sea included my wife, Kathy, and I achieving PADI diving certificates after training in Tobago. I pursued the scientific study of wave energy. Research, study, acquisition of knowledge, and applied innovative creativity were my work habits then and continue to this day. Day after day, wave after wave, bright sun and salt spray, burning, stinging your eyes. Other days were misty and cold with a drifting fog that masked the potential danger of brigades of waves that thundered on the rockbound coast. You never knew where the big one was but you did feel the excitement of being on the edge, and you were aware that the rogue was out there. A memory of a sunny-day rogue wave that came out of nowhere still lingers in my memory. It took my easel and paints away, and the painting is now in King Neptune's collection. Dad became a Master Mariner, any tonnage, any ocean. I became a Master Painter, any subjects, any location. The Sea, my surrogate father, evolved into the symbol of my father, a sea captain who was missing in action in the old gray mountainous seas of the North Atlantic on Dec. 7, 1942. The sea and an instinctive love of it was what I inherited from my father. For that reason I portray the ocean as a virile masculine image, with power and glory, to be respected and loved, but not feared. I acquired respect as one of America's leading marine artists when President Ford, while in the White House, accepted "Windhovering," a major 30" x 48" Bleich painting. |
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| Gift to NATO in my Father's Memory - 293 remarqued posters and 69 limited edition remarqued prints of Carmel's Point Lobos were prepared for world leaders attending a NATO conference, and General Colin Powell, whom I admired before he came to the fore. Cap Weinburger, who approved the gift, wrote, "The artwork is breathtaking, and captures the true beauty of the Northern California Coast. Your gesture in providing these pictures with your inscribed personal message, 'May the common goals of Understanding and Peace be assured through Mutual Respect, Unity and Strength,' was quite beyond anyone's imagination. Since you dedicated these gifts in memory of your father, who gave his life while serving in the Merchant Marines in World War II, I particularly salute you for your noble action." A special one was prepared for President Reagan with the quote in all NATO languages around the border. It took a month of my time to prepare this gift of over $34,000 of my art. |
| Mr. Bleich attributes the constant freshness in his paintings to his involvement from coast to coast and abroad. He loves to follow the sea looking for spectacular waves to paint. One art critic reviewing his one man show at the Edna Hibel Gallery on Worth Ave in Palm Beach. Florida, writing of the artist's seascapes, stated that Bleich's use of color is so effective and dramatic, that his canvases glow. |
One of Mr. Bleich's sources of pride is his acceptance by both the general public and knowledgeable collectors. He says, "It's a wonderful feeling as an artist to know that your work is appreciated in homes where your canvases are hung along with those of the masters from the past whom you admire greatly. I am determined to grow in my knowledge of the sea, the ability to convey its moods in my life's work, a labor of love. I feel an artist's work should be an extension of the sum total of himself, and my sum total has grown to be far more than my first love the sea ." At the right is a photo of Mr. Bleich painting the sea at Point Lobos, California, just south of Carmel. |
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| Mother Earth is my love and inspiration. The sea may always be my forte, but there are times when every sailor feels the need of the land. Instinctively as a child, I will go to the mountains to draw upon their strength. Home is the sailor from the sea." The strength of my Sierra scenes led to an entire summer as artist in residence in Yosemite in the studio of a 19th century painter , Thomas Hill. I refused a financial grant in order to serve America as a volunteer in the parks. That was a hard lesson I learned from my dad. He didn't have to go to war since he was exempt as a civil service employee, a canal pilot in the Canal Zone. He wanted to do his part. Likewise, in a peaceful sort of way, I want to do my part also, to give something back. |
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