Many of us are familiar with the work of Stuart Davis (1892- 1964), the American Modernist whose paintings presaged the Pop Art of the 60’s. They were bold and colorful abstracted collages that use imagery from the landscape of the popular culture at the time they were created, creating works that immediately evoke a time. When I see them I a transported to the New York or Paris of the 40’s and 50’s, with Jazz and poetry blossoming in the aftermath of a devastating war that really changed our perceptions of the world.
But it is Davis’ early work that always intrigues, particularly a small group that was painted not to far from where I live. There are three landscapes painted just over the state line in rural Tioga, Pennsylvania in 1919 that are very different from the work for which Davis is best known. They show a young artist still working in the style of those artists who inspired him, trying on their style and brushstrokes in an effort to find his own voice.
You can see how he had been affected by seeing the work of Van Gogh and Picasso for the first time at the legendary Armory Show in 1913, where his own work hung among the emerging giants of modern painting. Davis was then a student of Robert Henri and painted in a style associated with the NYC Ashcan school of painters , of which Henri was a leader. These three pieces have thick. expressive stokes of paint and scream of Van Gogh and have few hints at where Davis’ road would eventually lead him.
The pieces are very accomplished and have a certain charm but it is obvious that they are still derivative and that Davis is still in the midst of his evolution from talented mimic to an original voice. To me, they are an interesting insight to how we synthesize our broad spectrum of influences into something truly original. I would be hard-pressed to say that the man who painted these pieces would eventually become a leading light of abstract modernism but they somehow moved him along in his search for his own distinct voice. It only goes to show that we should take in everything that excites us even if it seems out of our normal area of comfort. It may open new and exciting worlds to us that we could never foresee.
Stuart Davis--Self Portrait 1919
Redtree Times 