Provenance:

Purchased directly from the artist

Note:

TONY BLOOM

“The work deals with thresholds and contradictions: between materials, between the rational and the intuitive, the dynamic and the passive, the functional and the non.
It involves the constraints brought on by the shifting from a low to a mid-technology; when the round-bottomed vessels that we nestled in the sand floors of our caves don’t sit well on the flat table or our drawing rooms.The question of balance comes into play with the rocking, hinged, opening, interlocking pieces which are free to move but don’t unless motivated. The addressing of those ironies becomes the point of balance...”

- Tony Bloom -

Tony Bloom was born in Tokyo, Japan and lived in Washington, D.C., and Paris, before settling in Canmore, B.C. in 1970. Bloom started his career as a physicist, but rejected his profession after a couple of years of working in that field, feeling that it could not offer the challenge and fulfillment that art could. Through his art, he found that he could create objects and notations that allowed him to convey what was meaningful to him. He studied musical composition at the Banff School of Fine Arts in 1970. Wanting to create a flute out of clay, he signed up for a pottery course and soon realized that flutes were a challenge to make out of clay (some of his clay instruments can be found at the Canadian Museum of Civilization.) He grew to love the material and processes and only realized ten years into it that he now had a career, a business and his life’s work. In the mid-1980’s, Bloom started to work with bronze, discovering that, although this material offered different qualities to clay, techniques for each could be overlaid into the other.

Tony Bloom’s works have been exhibited in North America, Europe and Japan for over 40 years now and he is one of Canada’s most respected sculptors, working primary in steel, copper, bronze and aluminum. In 2011, Bloom was commissioned to produce a major piece of art for the Northern Alberta Jubilee Auditorium and more recently in 2013, a recently opened exhibit entitled “Landbuoys” is at the Whyte Museum in Banff, Alberta. He is also the recipient of numerous awards, including the Province of Alberta Achievement Award (1988) and the Canada Council Award (1984, 1987, 1997). He is also co-founder of Stonecrop Studios in Canmore, Alberta, where he continues to create his artwork.

Selected Corporate, Private and Public Commissions and Collections

Alberta Foundation for the Arts
Amoco Oil
ATCO Resources
BC Hydro Authority
The Banff Centre School of Fine Arts
Banff Springs Hotel
The Canadian Museum of Civilization
Canadian Crafts Council, Canadian Utilities Ltd.
CBC Calgary
City of Burnaby, British Columbia
City of Calgary, Alberta
City of Edmonton, Alberta
City of Lloydminster, Alberta/Saskatchewan
City of New Westminster, British Columbia
Claridge Collection
Esso Resources Calgary
ICG Resources
Government of Alberta
Government of Canada
International Academy of Ceramics, Geneva, Switzerland
Lancaster Building, Calgary
Massey Foundation
Mount Royal College, Calgary, Alberta
Peter and Catharine Whyte Foundation
Placer Cego Resources Ltd.
Public Library, City of Burlington, Washington
Office of the Prime Minister of Canada
Riveredge Foundation
Syncrude Resources
Town of Canmore, Alberta
TransCanada Pipelines Ltd.
University of British Columbia, Vancouver, B.C.

Selected Exhibitions

2014 Looking Forward 2 Looking Back, 2 person exhibition with John Borrowman, Elevation Gallery, Canmore, AB
Landbuoys, Art Gallery of Grande Prairie,AB
2013 Landbuoys, Whyte Museum Gallery, Banff, Alberta
2008 Chasing Sparks; exhibition, Avens Gallery, Canmore, Alberta
2002 Covalent Games; Universitaries de Treball Social, Barcelona, Spain
2001 Reconvergence; City of Red Deer Cultural Centre Gallery, Red Deer, Alberta
Convergence/Divergence, two person show with Ed Bamling; Stony Plain Public Gallery, Stony Plain, Alberta -
1999 Canadian Content; American Craft Museum store, NYC
1998 Canada/Greece Exchange; Athens, National Museum
1997 Complex Context, Whyte Museum Gallery; Banff, Alberta
1996 Opus, Canadian Museum of Civilization, Ottawa
1993 Worth Gallery, Taos, New Mexico
1992 NIH Galleries, Washington, D.C.
1991 Sun Cities Art Museum, Sun City, Arizona
1990 Galerie Franklin Silverstone, Montreal 
1989 New Art Forms, Chicago, Illinois 
1988 Going for Gold, Calgary, Alberta, XV Winter Olympics
1986 International Ceramics Exhibition; Mino, Japan
Artists Society International; San Francisco
1984 International Academy of Ceramics; Washington
1978 Artisan 78; Canadian Craft Council
London/Banff Exchange -
 Commonwealth Games; Edmonton, Alberta
Ontario/Alberta Exchange; travelling exhibition
1977 Essential Elements; Centre des Arts Visuels, Montreal
1974 Contemporary Ceramic Sculpture; Vancouver, B.C.

Selected Links

Alberta Arts: Yours to Enjoy, Tony Bloom
tonybloom.com