Draft:George Grunblatt

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George Grunblatt C. 1997 Jackson Square, New Orleans

George Grunblatt with his art cart at Jackson Square, circa 1997

George Grunblatt (1921–2008) was a New Orleans painter associated with the Jackson Square Art Colony, where he exhibited his work on the iron fence surrounding the square for more than fifty years. He is known for oils and watercolors depicting French Quarter street scenes and Louisiana swamp landscapes. He was also a musician, a recorder society chapter representative, and a maker of handcrafted Renaissance instruments.

Life and education

Grunblatt was born on July 10, 1921, in Louisiana. His father, George Zalman Grunblatt Sr., was a Russian immigrant who made his living as a sign painter in New Orleans. He served in the United States Navy during World War II, enlisting June 29, 1942, and was assigned to the USS Dewey (DD-349) in the Pacific theater, where he served as a Fire Controlman Second Class. He was selected for the Navy V-12 Officer Development Program in 1944, which placed him at Tulane University in New Orleans to study art. After the war he transferred his credits to Louisiana State University, where he studied under the regionalist painter Conrad Albrizio and graduated in 1948. He is buried at Biloxi National Cemetery, Biloxi, Mississippi.

Following his studies, Grunblatt traveled to Mexico, where he worked on Diego Rivera's Mexico City murals. He joined the Jackson Square Art Colony in the early 1950s and painted in the French Quarter for over fifty years. In his later years he resided at Christopher House in the Marigny district of New Orleans, where he remained after Hurricane Katrina. He died on June 16, 2008, at the age of 86, survived by a number of nieces, nephews, and extended family.

Work

Grunblatt painted exclusively New Orleans subjects — French Quarter street scenes, cathedral views, courtyard and alley compositions, and Louisiana swamp and bayou landscapes. His primary support was hardboard (Masonite) throughout his career. Confirmed work spans at least 1963 to 1987. Characteristic features of his oils include teal and blue-green ironwork, tall narrow vertical formats, and small human figures used as scale references in street scenes. Matched pairs were a documented commercial practice. His technique developed from loose gestural handling in early oils toward more refined architectural detail by the mid-1980s, when his palette also grew noticeably more muted.

Music

Grunblatt was an active musician throughout his life. He built Renaissance bass and tenor viols by hand, including a viola da gamba, transforming a guitar into a tenor viol and building a bass viol from scratch. Betty Wauchope, who attended a music workshop with Grunblatt at Loyola University in 1978, recalled that he was always willing to retie frets, reset the sound post, and otherwise repair fellow musicians' instruments, and that a teacher at a viol conclave admired the bass viol he had built. He served as the New Orleans chapter representative of the American Recorder Society during the 1980s and 1990s, a position listed in the organization's journal in 1987. He was also a member of Simonne Fischer's Lowerline Quintet for several years and worked with private students. A 1978 photograph published in the Times-Picayune shows him playing clarinet in the French Quarter alongside a woman identified as Sister Katie Lowry.

The Albrizio mural and Mexico

After graduating from LSU, Grunblatt traveled to Mexico, where he worked on Diego Rivera's Mexico City murals. He also worked as an assistant to Conrad Albrizio on the Union Passenger Terminal mural in New Orleans, a project completed in 1954. The mural, a 2,166-square-foot fresco depicting 400 years of Louisiana history across four panels, is considered Albrizio's most significant work and was restored through a public fundraising effort in 2006. Official documentation of the mural credits Albrizio and James Fisher as assistant; Grunblatt's name does not appear in official records. However, Grunblatt described his own experience working on the mural in a video recorded shortly before his death and posted to YouTube in 2015. His role may have been informal or preparatory.

Auction market

Grunblatt's work has appeared at auction since at least 2013, primarily through Crescent City Auction Gallery in New Orleans. His paintings have a documented sell-through rate of approximately 75 percent. Recent results include a December 2025 sale of a pair of Pirates Alley French Quarter Scenes (1973) at Crescent City Auction Gallery and a September 2025 result through BpEJ's Auction & Appraisal, indicating his market has expanded beyond a single regional house.

References

Category:1921 births Category:2008 deaths Category:American painters Category:Artists from New Orleans Category:American military personnel of World War II Category:Tulane University alumni Category:Louisiana State University alumni