Born in 1930 in Germany, Siggi Blum studied commercial art and was subsequently employed by the U.S. Army to design training posters after W. W. II. After arriving in Canada in 1952, he began a lengthy career in advertising design at Templeton Studios, starting by cleaning artists’ water bowls and finally becoming the studio manager. He lived in Toronto for 13 years. In various moves, he found himself in Vancouver, Barrie, New Hampshire and Grey County.
During his years in advertising, he began to do abstract landscapes inspired by impressions of his surroundings, often gained during his commute from his country residences to Toronto.
Due to the demands of his career in commercial art, as well as the demands of raising his two daughters, he abandoned his initial attempts at oil painting, settling on chalk pastels as his sole media. It requires a less lengthy preparation than oil painting. Pastel painting can be executed in a shorter time and reworked at any stage without concerns around drying. His current work has evolved into a detailed, very realistic style. He achieves this by layering, blending and sometimes erasing the chalk, much as one would do with paint. The result has the effect of a painting, often to the point of photo-realism.
This transition of style occurred after his retirement from the advertising business in 1987. He lived on his country property near Durham. He felt challenged to work in this more realistic manner, perhaps, because he now had the time to concentrate, uninterrupted, on this demanding working style.
Siggi’s largest creation to date is a round “stackwall” log home, hand built with the aid of his wife, Sheila. Having previously renovated seven homes of his own, two of these being in Grey County, he was able to use his natural talent for building to achieve his lifelong dream of building a log home in a woodland setting.
The majority of Siggi’s abstract landscapes have found customers in his native Germany. Some of his more realistic work has sold there also. Siggi was associated with the Brindabella Gallery in Oakville and has sold privately in Grey County.
The beautiful landscapes of Grey and Bruce Counties have been an inspiration for much of Siggi’s work. The rolling hills, farmlands, natural ponds and forests are extremely reminiscent of the landscapes of his childhood summers in Germany. Recently, he has done pieces that incorporate figures into the landscape, some portraits and some commissioned animal portraits.
