Bernard Goldberg Fine Arts

Provenance:

Estate of the artist

Recorded:

Boyajian, Ani and Mark Rutkoski, eds. Stuart Davis: A Catalogue Raisonné, Volume II. New Haven: Yale University Art Gallery, 2007. Cat. no. 137, illus., p. 60

One of America’s most progressive champions of modern art, Stuart Davis is best known for his boldly colored, hard-edged abstractions that celebrate the American landscape and life in a proto-pop art manner. Born in Philadelphia in 1892, the artist began his career as a journalistic illustrator, and then moved into a period of Ashcan-inspired urban realism (he studied with both Robert Henri and John Sloan from 1910 to 1913). The artist’s encounter with European art at the 1913 Armory Show led him toward a different aesthetic, first into Expressionism and then later into his own particular brand of Cubism. For the most part, Davis employed his geometric cubist style to evoke the power and vibrancy of the urban landscape, particularly its industrial structures and jazz culture.

To a great degree, Davis’ mature aesthetic hinged on the notion of the drawn line. The artist himself considered his paintings to be drawings in oil, an interpretation that is supported by the flat colors and discrete shapes of his compositions. Another of Davis’ most distinctive characteristics was his fascination with commercial labels and packaging. Initially using typography as an indicator of a streetscape, Davis eventually developed this interest in a more formal direction, using letters and words in his paintings as structural elements as well as for their associative meanings. These hallmarks of the artist’s mature style are exemplified by A Sentimental Still Life, a pen and ink drawing from 1922.

Separated into six squares, the drawing exhibits a narrative progression that follows a couple through the stages of a date at an outdoor café. Beginning in the upper left, Davis sets the scene, employing pared down linear elements to portray the table, chairs and signage of the café. The second square shows the first member of the party to arrive: delineated by a series of dotted lines, the woman sits patiently, legs crossed, waiting for her companion to arrive. Standing to greet him in the third frame, she raises her arms for an embrace. Like she, the man is depicted through abstract linear components, though his are more akin to the flowing black contours of a suit. In the fourth square, he motions to the waiter for drinks, as she leans forward, head propped on her hands, gazing intently at him. In the final segment, Davis highlights the emptiness of the scene: the abandoned table, the glasses stripped of their contents, and the coins, left behind for the tip. A quirky drawing that illustrates Davis’ concern for rhythmic lines and skillful use of negative space, A Sentimental Still Life signals the direction in which Davis would take his art.