Timed to coincide with its major exhibition, “The New Spirit: American Art in the Armory Show, 1913,” the Montclair Art Museum in New Jersey is now presenting a revealing look at works by American modernist Oscar Bluemner (1867-1938).

The exhibition, “Oscar Bluemner’s America: Picturing Paterson, New Jersey,” juxtaposes Bluemner's work with his contmeporaries highlighted in the Armory Show exhibition.

A German immigrant who lived in Paterson, New Jersey, Bluemner experienced firsthand the momentous Silk Strike of 1913, one of the largest union movements in American labor history.

On view are works from the Vera Kouba Bluemner Collection at Stetson University, selected by curator Roberta Smith Favis, that represent Bluemner's work from 1910 to 1917. Fresh from a trip to Europe in 1912, Bluemner, in his 40s, combined elements from the avant-garde to create his own artistic vision. He blended realism and Cubism to depict such subjects as local buildings and factories in vibrant colors.

Bluemner's sympathies were for Paterson’s working class who were caught up in a strike with silk manufacturers in 1913. The strike failed and then the employers left town, perhaps resulting in the artist's darker tones in paintings made after 1913.