Lucienne Bloch

Bloch was born in Geneva, Switzerland, the youngest child of composer and photographer Ernest Bloch. In 1917, the Bloch family emigrated to America.

A multi-talented artist, Lucienne attended the École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris at 14, apprenticing with sculptor Antoine Bourdelle and painter Andre Lhote.[2] Her close friend Beniamino Bufano also influenced her sculpture.

In 1929, she pioneered the design of glass sculpture for the Royal Leerdam Crystal Glass Factory in the Netherlands. When Frank Lloyd Wright saw her glass works and spoke with her in New York, he invited her to teach at his architectural school, Taliesin East, where she worked with artist and muralist Santiago Martínez Delgado and other Taliesin fellows.

Then, in 1931, Bloch had met and began her apprenticeship with Diego Rivera on his frescoes in New York (1931, 1933) and Detroit (1932). She also formed a close friendship with Rivera's wife Frida Kahlo, and they became each other's companion and confidant. In 1932 she accompanied Kahlo to Mexico when Kahlo's mother became ill. She was also with Kahlo in Detroit when Kahlo had her miscarriage.

Lucienne Bloch and Stephen Pope Dimitroff - 1985 Gualala. (photo: Alexander Kaloian)

A prolific photographer, Bloch contributed many photographs of Rivera and Kahlo to biographical works about them. She took the only existing photographs of Rivera's (controversially) destroyed mural, Man at the Crossroads, in Rockefeller Center Plaza in New York City. She created five portfolios of photographs of Rivera and Kahlo, including photos of Kahlo's paintings in progress, and the artists in New York City, Detroit, and Mexico.[3] The apprentices there were: Bloch, Stephen Pope Dimitroff, Lou Block, Arthur Niendorf, Seymour Fogel, Hideo Noda, and Antonio Sanchez Flores.

On September 5, 1936, Lucienne married Stephen Pope Dimitroff, one of Rivera's chief plasterers. Together they created fresco murals all over the United States.

From 1935 to 1939, Bloch was employed by the WPA/FAP (Works Progress Administration/Federal Arts Project). As a WPA/FAP artist, she completed murals for public buildings, including the House of Detention for Women in New York City, and the Fort Thomas, Kentucky post office.[3] She also worked free-lance as a photographer for Life magazine. For Life she record the desperate conditions of autoworkers during labor strikes and protests that occurred throughout the U.S. during the formation of automobile worker unions.

She and Dimitroff created nearly 50 murals across the United States for religious institutions, schools, hospitals, and businesses. Dimitroff died in 1996 on their farm in Gualala, California.

Bloch worked in many types of media: photography, fresco, woodblock cuts, lithographs, mosaics, egg tempera, watercolor, wood and glass sculpture, terra cotta, portraits in ink, gesso, and oil.

She also illustrated numerous children's books, of which the Library of Congress lists:

• I Want to Fly by Anita Brenner, (1943)
• Willie's Walk to Grandmama, by Margaret Wise Brown and Rockbridge Campbell (1944)
• Keep Singing, Keep Humming: A Collection of Play and Story Songs, by Margaret Bradford Boni (1946)
• Smart Little Boy and His Smart Little Kitty, by Louise Woodcock (1947)
• Is it Hard? Is it Easy? by Mary McBurney Green (1948)
• Everybody Eats by Mary McBurney Green (1950)
• Sandpipers, Edith Thacher Hurd (1961)
• Starfish, Edith Thacher Hurd (1962)