Oscar Bluemner,
A Situation in Yellow, 1933. Oil on canvas, 36 × 50 1/2 in. (91.4 × 128.3 cm). Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; gift of Nancy and Harry L. Koenigsberg
67.66 
Before he became an artist, Oscar Bluemner was an
architect. He often painted
landscapes with buildings such as houses and factories. In his work, Bluemner explored what different colors meant to him. He used unexpected colors to express the mood or feeling of a scene. “When you
FEEL colors,” he said, “you will understand the
WHY of their forms." He likened the
composition of a painting to musical structure:
pigment was a key on the piano—the shifts in
tones were
octaves and
harmonies.
This painting was inspired by a visit Bluemner made to his former home in New Jersey, where he and his family had lived for about ten years until his wife, Lina, died in 1926. In this painting, lemon-colored houses are set against a
vermillion backdrop with gray, leafless trees and a
foreground that might be a river or a street. The combination of unusual colors suggests that his visit to New Jersey brought up mixed feelings and memories for the artist.
