Charles G. Blake, St. Petersburg. Central Yacht Basin, St. Petersburg, Florida 1933, watercolor, sight 7 1/2 by 11 1/2 inches.
Born in Devonshire, England in 1866, Charles Blake immigrated with his family to the United States and Rhode Island in 1869. After study at the Cowles Art School in Boston and the Art Institute of Chicago, in 1892 Blake went to work for a Rhode Island granite company designing funerary monuments. He moved to Chicago in 1902 to establish his own business, The Charles G. Blake Company, designing and building monuments and mausoleums for some of Chicago’s most prominent families, including Marshal Field and Bertha and Potter Palmer; Mrs. Palmer is remembered for her prominent role in establishing Sarasota as a cultural center in Florida. Blake was a member of the Chicago Stock exchange, the Art Institute of Chicago, a director of several banks, a 32nd degree Mason and president of the Chicago Lawn Bowling club.
Blake began coming to St. Petersburg in 1923 and was soon a passionate member of the St. Petersburg Lawn Bowlers Club. In 1925 he organized, in cooperation with the Chamber of Commerce, an international midwinter lawn bowling tournament at the club house in Mirror Lake Park. In 1926 heart trouble forced him into semi-retirement in St. Petersburg and back to his first love, art. In 1934 sixty of Blake’s paintings of Florida flowers and twenty portraits of American authors’ homes were exhibited at the Chicago Century of Progress. He wanted to paint a series of watercolors depicting historic firsts in St. Petersburg and by 1935 had completed 40 pictures, including the first fishing pier, the first streetcar and the first primitive church.
Charles Blake, St. Petersburg. Watercolors, Florida Flowers.
In 1936 he submitted a large number of his paintings to the management of the South Florida Fair in Tampa. When the committee examined the work, consisting of 137 watercolors, including fifty-four pictures of Florida, they assumed they were by a professional. Blake’s work was hung, to his surprise, in the professional area of the art exhibit, giving it a space of fifteen by thirty feet. (The exhibition committee may have confused Charles Blake with professional artist Donald Blake of Sarasota.)
Charles G. Blake, St. Petersburg. The Constitution (Old Ironsides) on the Last Day of Her Last Official Port of Call, St. Petersburg, Fla. April 29, 1934, watercolor, 7 by 11 inches.
After 21 years as a prominent figure in St. Petersburg art circles and a passionate city booster, heart problems forced him to retire from public activity. He died in St. Petersburg in 1941. In 1982 the St. Petersburg Times purchased seventy-five of Blakes watercolors depicting the history of St. Petersburg from 1929 to 1936 and presented the collection to the city.
Born: October 3, 1866, Devonshire, England. Died: March 25, 1941, St. Petersburg, Florida. Education: Cowles Art School, Boston; Art Institute of Chicago; American Art Academy. Membership: Art Club of St. Petersburg, president; Clearwater Art Museum; Florida Federation of Art; American Artists Professional League. Exhibits: Art Club of St. Petersburg, March 1935, 40 watercolors depicting firsts in St. Petersburg history including Bridge Over Coffee Pot Bayou, 18 paintings of homes of famous American authors; Florida Federation of Art, 9th Annual Convention, Miami Biltmore Hotel, December 1936, 1st prize, marine, nonprofessional, Landing Beach-Lundy Island; Florida State Fair, Tampa, February 1936; Florida Federation of Art Annual, St Petersburg Federal Gallery, February 1937, first prize marine, non-professional, watercolor, Landing Beach, Lundy; Federal Art Galleries, St. Petersburg, 415, 3rd Avenue South, December 1937; Florida Federation of Art, 11th Annual Exhibition, St. Augustine, December, 2-5, 1937, watercolors, Deserted Fish House, Hillside Rock Garden; Florida Federation of Art 12th Annual, Society of Four Arts, Palm Beach, December 1938, watercolors, A Devonshire Country Side and Lizard Head, England; Art Club of St. Petersburg, March 1939, A Devonshire County Side (scenes from Blake’s childhood) including Clovelly and Lundy Island, Cornish Coast, Rock of Ages, Biddeford Bridge, Parliament House, Big Ben and St. Petersburg’s Gandy Bridge by Starlight; Clearwater Art Museum, January 1940; Pinellas County Fair, January 1940, watercolor, landscape, 1st prize, watercolor, marine, 1st prize, watercolor, vegetables, 2nd prize; Pinellas County Fair, January 1941, watercolor, animals, 1st prize, flowers, 2nd prize, figures, 1st prize, landscape, 1st prize, marine, 1st prize, portrait, 2nd prize, still life, 2nd prize; St. Petersburg Chamber of Commerce, November 1940 with 40 Pinellas County artists; Pinellas County Fair, January 1941, 1st prize, watercolor figure, 1st prize watercolor Landscape, 1st prize watercolor, marine, 2nd prize, watercolor flowers.
