Bloch, E. Maurice

Art historian, teacher, and collector who championed the study of the history of American art.

Biographical/Historical Note

E. Maurice Bloch, American art historian, professor, curator and collector, was born in New York City, October 26, 1916, the only child of immigrant parents. His mother, who studied to be a singer, was from Austria; his father was a businessman, born in Holland. His parents, particularly his mother, encouraged and supported Bloch's interest in art.

Bloch enrolled at New York University, first as an undergraduate in the School of Architecture and Allied Arts, then as a graduate student in the Institute of Fine Arts, for which he wrote a dissertation on George Caleb Bingham (not completed until 1967).

He taught at the University of Missouri (1944-1945), NYU's Washington Square Campus (1945-1946), and the University of Minnesota (1946-1947). He was curator of prints at Cooper Union Museum (1952- ca. 1957). His employment at the University of California, Los Angeles began in 1956 and lasted until 1982 when he retired. During his tenure at UCLA, Bingham also served as a curator with the Grunwald Center for the Graphic Arts, from which he also retired in 1982.

Beginning in 1975 Bloch served on the board of the Virginia Steele Scott Foundation, and as the Second Vice President for Art helped transform what had been an eclectic, private collection into a public collection of American art (now the Virginia Steele Scott Gallery at the Huntington Library). Bloch was involved with the Western Division of the Archives of American Art since the early 1980s, and helped negotiate a cooperative arrangement between the AAA, the Virginia Steele Scott Gallery and the Huntington Library.

His scholarly interests were in American art. The majority of his completed projects concern George Caleb Bingham. He wrote his dissertation on Bingham and the catalog raisonné of Bingham's paintings (1967, revised edition 1986), a catalog raisonné of Bingham's drawings (1975), numerous articles, and curated at least three exhibits of Bingham's work. His other large project, never completed, was his work toward a catalog of Benjamin West's paintings.

Bloch's own collecting interests ranged widely. His personal collections contained paintings, drawings (including those by West), stamps, illustrated sheet music, and autographs, although he limited himself primarily to American artists, illustrators and topics.

Bloch never married. He maintained an extraordinarily close relationship with his mother and father, who lived with him after he moved to California, until their deaths.

The Oral History Program at the University of California, Los Angeles published an oral history of E. Maurice Bloch in 1991 from interviews conducted by Bernard Galm in 1987. Bloch died December 1989 in Los Angeles.