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1920s

Bloch returned to Berlin and his work was recognised in 1920 with his first major solo exhibition, of 54 paintings at the Paul Cassirer Gallery.  An early 'Self-Portrait as St Anthony' (1919) is in the Museum of Ein Harod, Israel. 1920 saw Bloch join the Freie Secession (1914-24), a group of artists which split from the Berlin Secession. In the same year he married journalist and theatre critic Lotte Zavrel (née Ruhemann 1886-1979), his friend Helmut's sister, and their daughter, Barbara, was born in 1922. Living in Berlin in the 1920s, Bloch found success both as a painter and as a teacher, co-founding a private art school in 1926 with the expressionist painter Anton Kerschbaumer (1885-1931). Like Bloch, Kerschbaumer had studied with Corinth and exhibited with Paul Cassirer. Every summer from 1924 onwards Bloch took his pupils from the art school to Lake Garda, in Northern Italy where they painted along the shores of the lake. Bloch's landscape paintings of Bavaria and Italy and his Berlin cityscapes of the 1920s and early 1930s strike a delicate balance between the influences of Munch and Cézanne. 'Bridge in Tiergarten, Berlin' (1920), now in the Bristol Museum and Art Gallery, shares a typical freedom of angle and brushstroke with the Italian 'Casa Rigo, Lake Garda' (1925) in the Tate. His emphasis on colour links him back to the Delauneys, and to the Die Brücke group (1905- 1913), which had been founded by four Jugendstil architecture students from Dresden including Karl Schmidt-Rottluff (1884-1976) and Ernst Ludwig Kirchner (1880-1938).

Bridge in Tiergarten, Berlin 1920 painting by Martin Bloch

Bridge in Tiergarten, Berlin

1920

Drawing Room, Berlin 1920 painting by Martin Bloch

Drawing Room, Berlin

1920

Head of the Artist's Wife 1920 painting by Martin Bloch

Head of the Artist's Wife

1920

Still Life on Yellow Ground 1921 painting by Martin Bloch

Still Life on Yellow Ground

1921

Fields in Bavarian Fields 1922 painting by Martin Bloch

Fields in Bavarian Fields

1922

Torbole Harbour, Lago di Garda 1924 painting by Martin Bloch

Torbole Harbour, Lago di Garda

1924

Still Life with Jugs and Aubergines 1924-5 painting by Martin Bloch

Still Life with Jugs and Aubergines

1924-5

Casa Rigo, Lake Grado II 1925 painting by Martin Bloch

Casa Rigo, Lake Grado II

1925

Woman on a Terrace 1926 painting by Martin Bloch

Woman on a Terrace

1926

Evening in Torbole 1926 painting by Martin Bloch

Evening in Torbole

1926

Self-Portrait with Pipe 1926 painting by Martin Bloch

Self-Portrait with Pipe

1926

The Dolomites 1926-7 painting by Martin Bloch

The Dolomites

1926-7

Val di Sogno 1927 painting by Martin Bloch

Val di Sogno

1927

Still Life with Green Bottles 1927 painting by Martin Bloch

Still Life with Green Bottles

1927

Baroque Angel on Red Ground 1927 painting by Martin Bloch

Baroque Angel on Red Ground

1927

Terraces, Lago di Garda 1928 painting by Martin Bloch

Terraces, Lago di Garda

1928

Arancia 1928 painting by Martin Bloch

Arancia

1928

Scuola di San Rocco 1928-30 painting by Martin Bloch

Scuola di San Rocco

1927