Water Sculpture, Rhythm of the Sea, by Boris Blai

If you are walking near the rear entrance of the Student Enrichment Center (also known as the SEC) on the Penn State Harrisburg campus, there is a beautiful and noteworthy bronze sculpture to greet you.  Known as Rhythm of the Sea, the work was created in 1940 by noted Russian-American abstract and figurative sculptor and educator, Boris Blai.

About Boris Blai (1893-1985)

Blai was born in Russia in present-day Rivne, Ukraine, on July 24, 1893.  As a promising young artist, Blai was just thirteen years old when he was enrolled in the Kyiv Imperial Academy of Arts, Ukraine, and graduated from the Imperial Academy of Fine Arts, Saint Petersburg, Russia.

After graduation, Blai’s family sent him first to Munich, Germany, and then to the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris, France.  While in Paris, Blai was personally invited to study with world-renowned French sculptor, Auguste Rodin, and spent five years learning from him. During World War I, Blai served in the French Army.  By 1918, he immigrated to the United States and became a U.S. citizen, settling first in New York and soon afterward in Philadelphia.

Among his many accomplishments and academic honors, today Blai is most recognized as the founder and first dean of the Stella Elkins Tyler School of Fine Arts at Temple University (now the Tyler School of Art and Architecture) in Philadelphia.  While Dean Blai’s tenure at the Tyler School spanned the years 1935-1960, he is also remembered for giving individual attention to students’ needs, being “committed to art as a socially-engaged practice,”* and advocating for the therapeutic benefits of creating art.  Writer and historian, Amy Masgay, described Blai’s eighteen months of harsh trench warfare during WWI as pivotal to shaping his philosophy of art education:

“He controlled his fear during the violence by filing shrapnel pieces into figurines and busts. This became a transformative epiphany for Blai on how using one’s hands in the act of creation can calm an anxious mind, and even preserve one’s sanity.” †

Before retiring from the Tyler School, in 1948, Dean Blai founded the Long Beach Island Foundation of the Arts and Sciences to offer workshops, exhibitions, and educational programming in the creative arts and physical sciences to the Long Beach Island community in New Jersey.  It still exists today.  In 1950, Blai received an honorary Doctor of Arts degree from Florida Southern College, in Lakeland, Florida, the ceremony for which introduced him to fellow honoree and one of the greatest architects of the 20th century, Frank Lloyd Wright.  Blai’s friendship with the architect resulted in him sculpting a bust of Wright and encouraging Wright to complete the design for the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York City.  Throughout his retirement, Dean Blai continued to teach and work in his studio with students, such as those enrolled in the “Master-Apprentice” workshop and program in the Fine and Performing Arts at Glassboro State College (now Rowan University) located in Glassboro, New Jersey.

About the Rhythm of the Sea

Prior to its arrival at Penn State Harrisburg, Rhythm of the Sea was owned by the Philadelphia Museum of Art and was a featured sculpture for many years due to its location in front of the museum.  The sculpture was subsequently given to Penn State Harrisburg and installed on campus in August 2018 by Century Engineering/Kleinfelder Company.  As a working fountain, Rhythm of the Sea is an example of a water sculpture.  Weather permitting, you may even see water flowing from the sculpture, which makes this a functional work of art!

Rhythm of the Sea, as described by Dean Blai, depicts the “dance of fish and human beings,”†† and reflects his overall artistic philosophy of combining all the arts (sculpture, dance, music, and theatre).  Blai believed that dance and sculpture should be unified, and that “the dance is the material for sculpture, for painting.”††

Important to the history of Penn State Harrisburg, Boris Blai was married to Bertha (nee Rosenberg) Blai and was stepfather to the Capitol College’s first female Provost and Dean, Dr. Ruth Leventhal.  She held this position at the college from 1984-1994 and made numerous and lasting contributions to the college’s art and architecture, including spearheading the acquisition of several other works by Boris Blai that are now featured in the Boris and Bertha Blai Sculpture Garden, located behind the Olmsted Building.  On June 28, 1985, Blai passed away in Philadelphia at the age of 91.

To learn more about Blai, his life, and career, the Temple University Libraries holds the Boris Blai Personal Papers (1915-1985) in the Special Collections Research Center.

References and Further Reading

* “History of Tyler,” Tyler School of Art and Architecture, Temple University, Accessed June 13, 2023, https://tyler.temple.edu/history-tyler.

† Amy Masgay, “Art, Life, and Legacy: The Story of Stella Elkins Tyler,” Art News Now, April 2023, Accessed June 13, 2023,  https://artsnewsnow.com/arts_news/legacy-of-stella-elkins-tyler/.

†† Robert A. Haller, “Dance and the Sculptor Boris Blai” from On Dance: Writings, Pictures of Dancers, oral history interview with Boris Blai, February 15, 1979, Philadelphia, PA,   Accessed June 13, 2023, http://www.roberthaller.com/html/on_dance.html.

Blog post written by Heidi Abbey Moyer, Archivist and Humanities Reference Librarian and Coordinator of Archives and Special Collections, June 2023 (hna2@psu.edu)