#arthurdove

Lantern, Arthur Dove, 1922, Art Institute of Chicago: American Art

Although Arthur Dove’s work as a whole is marked by his fascination with natural elements, he occasionally explored industrial or manmade motifs, including the lighting device that dominates Lantern. Like his colleague Stuart Davis, whose painting Saw (1988.144) transforms a mundane item into an artistic still life, Dove depicts the prosaic lantern as the object of aesthetic contemplation. Despite its abstracted forms, components of the lantern (probably a Coleman arc lantern) are recognizable, among them the two glowing mantles, the perforated collar with its black fuel valve, and the pump plunger. He employed a shimmering silver paint to depict the lantern’s globe as a flat, circular form, further marking his willingness to explore unusual materials. Alfred Stieglitz Collection Size: 54.3 × 45.7 cm (21 3/8 × 18 in.) Medium: Oil and silver paint on wood

Portrait of Alfred Stieglitz, Arthur Dove, 1924, MoMA: Drawings and Prints

Purchase Size: 15 7/8 x 12 1/8" (40.3 x 30.8 cm) Medium: Assemblage of lens, mirrored glass plate, springs, steel wool, glue, and nails mounted on board

Silver Sun, Arthur Dove, 1929, Art Institute of Chicago: American Art

In 1912 Arthur Dove made news when he exhibited in New York and Chicago ten pastels that were the first abstract works by an American to be seen by the public. Beginning with themes from nature, Dove had simplified and rearranged them, creating patterns, rhythms, and color harmonies that demonstrated how artists could dispense with representational subjects in order to communicate through form and color alone. From then on, Dove dedicated himself to exploring how he might depart from illusionism without abandoning nature. Silver Sun reveals with particular clarity Dove’s method of recasting nature into art. The artist’s sense of wonder at the force and beauty of the world is apparent, but so is his control over his creative means and, ultimately, over our aesthetic experience. Dove imparted a metaphysical radiance through expanding rings of blue and green, and through his use of glowing metallic-silver paint. He simplified, adjusted, and accented the landscape until the pulsating image no longer represented the thing seen but rather conveyed feeling, impact, and meaning. Dove remained committed to a personal vision. Nevertheless, he was well informed about current trends, and a web of interconnections links his work to that of others. For example, Silver Sun relates to the art of two of Dove’s friends, the painter Georgia O’Keeffe (see p. 116) and the photographer Alfred Stieglitz: they, like Dove, sometimes depicted transcendent skies in order to communicate a vision of the wholeness of nature. Alfred Stieglitz Collection Size: 55.3 × 74.9 cm (21 3/4 × 29 1/2 in.) Medium: Oil, metallic paint, and an unidentified material (possibly wax) on canvas

Monkey Fur, Arthur Dove, 1926, Art Institute of Chicago: American Art

Alfred Stieglitz Collection Size: 43.2 × 30.5 cm (17 × 12 in.) Medium: Corroded metal, monkey fur, tin foil, and cloth on metal

Swing Music (Louis Armstrong), Arthur Dove, 1938, Art Institute of Chicago: American Art

Like many modernists, Arthur Dove sought to suggest a connection between his paintings and music, which he admired for its ability to suggest absolute feeling, free of reference to the material world. An ardent amateur musician, he depicted musical subjects throughout his career. In the late 1920s he began listening to music while painting and simultaneously initiated a series of works on forms of popular music such as jazz and swing. Swing Music (Louis Armstrong) celebrates the renowned jazz trumpeter, who, in the 1930s, led swing-style orchestras. For Dove this topic was especially attractive because it evoked the dynamism characteristic of 20th-century life. Its specifically American nature made it an ideal subject for the native modernism that Dove and the other artists from the circle of Alfred Stieglitz sought to establish. Stieglitz exhibited this painting at his gallery An American Place. Alfred Stieglitz Collection Size: 44.8 × 65.7 cm (17 5/8 × 25 7/8 in.) Medium: Emulsion, oil, and wax on canvas

Swing Music (Louis Armstrong), Arthur Dove, 1938, Art Institute of Chicago: American Art

Like many modernists, Arthur Dove sought to suggest a connection between his paintings and music, which he admired for its ability to suggest absolute feeling, free of reference to the material world. An ardent amateur musician, he depicted musical subjects throughout his career. In the late 1920s he began listening to music while painting and simultaneously initiated a series of works on forms of popular music such as jazz and swing. Swing Music (Louis Armstrong) celebrates the renowned jazz trumpeter, who, in the 1930s, led swing-style orchestras. For Dove this topic was especially attractive because it evoked the dynamism characteristic of 20th-century life. Its specifically American nature made it an ideal subject for the native modernism that Dove and the other artists from the circle of Alfred Stieglitz sought to establish. Stieglitz exhibited this painting at his gallery An American Place. Alfred Stieglitz Collection Size: 44.8 × 65.7 cm (17 5/8 × 25 7/8 in.) Medium: Emulsion, oil, and wax on canvas

From a Wasp, Arthur Dove, 1914, Art Institute of Chicago: American Art

Arthur Dove lived in France from 1908 to 1909, where he absorbed the lessons of Pablo Picasso and other avantgarde artists working in Paris at the time, including fellow American Max Weber. Upon his return to New York, Dove joined the circle of artists at Alfred Stieglitz’s 291 gallery, and he became the first American painter to experiment with pure abstraction in works like From a Wasp. Employing subdued colors, perhaps in acknowledgement of the tones of Analytic Cubism, Dove created a tightly focused, highly abstract composition that renders the curving forms of a wasp’s body as a series of overlapping planes. Alfred Stieglitz Collection Size: 22 × 26.7 cm (8 5/8 × 10 1/2 in.) Medium: Oil on wood