Early Life and Artistic Training Born in Brunava Parish, Latvia, Hyman Bloom emigrated to the United States in 1920, joining his family in Boston. He was one of six children born to Joseph and Anna Melamed. As a young student, he received a scholarship to a program for gifted high school students at the Museum of Fine Arts. His formal training was shaped by the rigorous and traditional methods of Harold Zimmerman and Denman Ross. While Zimmerman focused on drawing and encouraged the creation of full-page compositions, Ross taught him how to handle paint in the style of the earlier masters. Th…