BY: Howard Karren
He died in 1964, on the eve of the Pop explosion that sent mid-century modernist painters spinning, but Stuart Davis’s work, which mixes American advertising style with the movements (cubist, dada, Abstract Expressionism) that he grew up with, presages the Pop era in both tone and content. There’s a playfulness and self-referential quality to this artist’s work that was on full display at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York in the exhibit, “Stuart Davis: In Full Swing,”
Visa (1951), by Stuart Davis. Oil on canvas, 40 x 52 inches. Museum of Modern Art, New York. © Estate of Stuart Davis / Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY.
Tropes de Teens (1956), by Stuart Davis. Oil on canvas, 45.25 x 60.25 inches. Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC. © Estate of Stuart Davis / Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY. Photograph by Cathy Carver.
Town Square (c. 1929), by Stuart Davis. Watercolor, gouache, ink, and pencil on paper, 15.5 x 22.875 in. Newark Museum © Estate of Stuart Davis / Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY.
Semé (1953), by Stuart Davis. Oil on canvas, 52 x 40 inches. Metropolitan Museum of Art. © Estate of Stuart Davis / Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY.
Salt Shaker (1931), by Stuart Davis. Oil on canvas, 49.875 x 32 inches. Museum of Modern Art, New York. © Estate of Stuart Davis / Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY.
Report from Rockport (1940), by Stuart Davis. Oil on canvas, 24 x 30 inches. Metropolitan Museum of Art. © Estate of Stuart Davis / Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY.
Percolator (1927), by Stuart Davis. Oil on canvas, 36 x 29 inches. Metropolitan Museum of Art. © Estate of Stuart Davis / Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY.
Owh! in San Pao (1951), by Stuart Davis. Oil on canvas, 52.1875 × 42 inches. Whitney Museum of American Art, New York. © Estate of Stuart Davis / Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY.
Odol (1924), by Stuart Davis. Oil on cardboard, 24 x 18 inches. Museum of Modern Art, New York. © Estate of Stuart Davis / Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY.
New York Mural (1932), by Stuart Davis. Oil on canvas, 84 x 48 inches. Norton Museum of Art, West Palm Beach, Florida. © Estate of Stuart Davis / Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY.
Fin (1962–64), by Stuart Davis. Casein and masking tape on canvas, 53.875 x 39.75 inches. Private collection. © Estate of Stuart Davis / Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY.
Colonial Cubism (1954), by Stuart Davis. Oil on canvas, 45.125 x 60.25 inches. Walker Art Center, Minneapolis. © Estate of Stuart Davis / Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY.
American Painting (1932/42–54), by Stuart Davis. Oil on canvas, 40 x 50 inches. Joslyn Art Museum, Omaha. © Estate of Stuart Davis / Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY.
Egg Beater No. 2 (1928), by Stuart Davis. Oil on canvas, 29.25 x 36.25 inches. Amon Carter Museum of American Art, Fort Worth. © Estate of Stuart Davis / Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY.
Lucky Strike (1921), by Stuart Davis. Oil on canvas, 33.25 x 18 inches. Museum of Modern Art, New York. © Estate of Stuart Davis / Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY.
Swing Landscape (1938), by Stuart Davis. Oil on canvas, 86.75 x 173.125 inches Indiana University Art Museum. © Estate of Stuart Davis/Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY.
The Paris Bit (1959), by Stuart Davis. Oil on canvas, 46.125 × 60.0625 inches. Whitney Museum of American Art, New York. © Estate of Stuart Davis / Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY.
