Frank Duhme. Oil on board, 29 by 36 1/2 inches.
Frank Duhme’s years as a park warden out on gulfcoast beaches, with constant exposure to sea and sky, resulted in his painting of many masterful Florida scenes. Eve Alsman Fuller first reviewed Duhme’s work in the St. Petersburg Times, December 3, 1922, “Two gleaming sea gulls, slender of wing and graceful, cut the clear, cool, deep blue of a white-flecked ocean background, in their half swerve, as they turned to join a dim line of other gleaming figures growing dim against a paler blue sky. A dream house, some call it, and others an old church. Still, others said it might be merely a cottage for honeymooners…And then again they said it was a rambling old house, wisteria covered, which had been deserted by its loved ones…A tiny close up of a disturbed sea, where green blue waves flaunted themselves futilely against the curved, pebbly coast. Where a sky, angry blue, gave way to small, still-rosy cloud. Three panels…are the pictures of Frank Duhme, of Seminole, artist who in the year he has been painting, has produced some lovely bits of work. His small pictures, with their delicate blue tints of a dream-like quality, are more pleasing, but his larger attempts, especially the screens, show originality and freer use of design.”
Fuller in the St. Petersburg Times, April 16, 1933, wrote a review of an April, Art Club of St. Petersburg exhibit and noted Frank Duhme’s work: “Painting is a natural happy and easy accomplishment for Frank Duhme which probably accounts for the variety shown in the four oil paintings in the exhibition. ‘Twilight’ and ‘Lupin Time’ are much alike in depiction of deep, green, wet woods of Florida. The ‘Still Life of Florida Flowers’ is finished and brilliant and was outstanding in a recent exhibition in Cleveland. But ‘Autumn Evening’ is real Florida, showing as it does the peace and subdued brilliance of a path in a Florida hammock, late in the fall. The paintings of Mr.Duhme are pleasant adornments in the homes of many residents of Florida and his exhibitions in the north are always popular. He is a popular painter with much ability, he might easily be a great painter if he made the effort.”
A review of Duhme’s one man exhibit at the Art Club of St. Petersburg, in the St. Petersburg Times, January 14, 1945 notes, “Visitors will be impressed by this collection of Florida scenes that reveal the Florida beloved by old timer as well as newer Floridians. The entire collection fills the spectator with a sense of infinite leisure, with the remembered quiet beauty of soft colors and limitless spacious reaches across waters, in deep woods or over marshy stretches. Love of this land and its haunting beauties are evident in this artist’s work. Each picture has an individual appeal. They all are pictures to live with.” The St. Petersburg Times, February 13, 1956 carried the following about Duhme: “Frank Duhme, Florida nature painter…is a former forest ranger and built a home in a jungle setting in the Bay Pines area forty-two years ago. He has painted during most of his life, producing representational pictures that reflected his closeness to nature.” Duhme was also a writer and radio commentator for WTSP.
Membership: Art Club of St. Petersburg; Clearwater Art Museum.
Exhibits: Art Club of St. Petersburg, 5th Annual, February 1927; Clearwater Woman’s Club, art division exhibit, March 1933, Woodlands at Sunset; Art Club of St. Petersburg, April 1933; Clearwater Art Museum, 16th Annual Members Show, March 1950; Art Club of St. Petersburg, January 1945, one man show, thirty oil paintings of Florida; Art Club of St. Petersburg, February 1956.
