STUART DAVIS
American, 18941964
Place des Vosges, No. 2, 1928
Oil on canvas. 25 3/8 x 36 1/4 in. (64 x 92 cm)
Dr. and Mrs. Milton Lurie Kramer, Class of 1936, Collection; bequest of
Helen Kroll Kramer. 77.62.1
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| Befriended by prominent members of the Ashcan School who worked for
his father on the Philadelphia Press, Davis became a student of Robert
Henri in New York. He exhibited five watercolors in the Armory Show of 1912,
the exhibition credited with introducing America to the work of Picasso,
Matisse, and other members of the European avant-garde. Deeply affected
by his encounter with European art, Davis became a fervent student of modernism.
Place des Vosges, No. 2 was painted during his visit to Paris in
1928 and 1929, a time of rest between two aggressive |
periods of exploration. He depicted the famous Parisian square, with
its series of arcades, by manipulating the two-dimensional surface of the
canvas so that it alternately asserts flatness and suggests depth. Davis
borrowed from European modernism, with its aggressive flatness of space
and geometric areas of color over the drawing that defines the subject,
and made it American, infusing it with a sense of immediacy and energy.
In this way, he was similar to other American artists of his time, such
as Charles Demuth and John Marin, who also took Parisian modernism and made
it more immediately accessible. |
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