Mortimer Blake

Mortimer Blake (born 1923) is an American painter and sculptor.

Blake is a reclusive artist who has turned recently from painting to sculpture as his core medium. Attention has been focused on Blake with the public placement of his piece "Daydream", a large scale recreation of Matisse's boldly formed cut out dancers. A casting of this work is on display at the 35-acre (140,000 m²) sculpture park Grounds for Sculpture in Hamilton Township, Mercer County, New Jersey and a second casting of the piece is on view at the Key West Customs House in Florida.

When well known sculptor J. Seward Johnson met Blake socially in New York City he invited him to come to the studio and work on some monumental pieces that Blake had described in their conversation. The results of these are, to date, the large Matisse work (with the life scale figure of the day dreamer on loan from Seward Johnson's collection), and in process is a life-sized two figured work which includes a nude. The third piece in process is a large provocative sculpted work that plays on two well known painters from the past. As Seward Johnson and Mortimer Blake have overlapping interests in working with the concept of derivation in the history of art, and current copyright regulations that threaten to inhibit this long standing referencing tool, it is a likely pairing for future exhibitions.

References

• Key West Art and Historical Society at the Custom House, Key West, FL
• The Sculpture Foundation, Hamilton, NJ

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Name	Blake, Mortimer
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Date of birth	1923
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