Art © Stuart Davis / Licensed by VAGA, New York
Currently not on view
Study #2 for "Famous Firsts",
1958
Stuart Davis, American, 1894–1964
x1982-45
Movement, space, and dynamism are all conveyed with bold graphic lines and saturated color planes in this study for an oil painting. Originally exhibited at New York’s Downtown Gallery, which, from its founding in 1926, championed contemporary American art, this painting displays Davis’s distinctively American style of Cubism and embrace of abstraction. His approach had a significant influence on younger artists such as Willem de Kooning and Arshile Gorky, both of whose work is on view nearby.
Information
Title
Study #2 for "Famous Firsts"
Dates
1958
Maker
Medium
Casein and graphite
Dimensions
38.1 × 32.8 cm (15 × 12 15/16 in.)
mat: 55.9 × 40.6 cm (22 × 16 in.)
Credit Line
Gift of John E. Stauffer, Class of 1954, and Mrs. Stauffer
Object Number
x1982-45
Signatures
Signed in graphite, lower right: Stuart Davis
Titled, signed, and dated on verso, in black gouache: Study #2 / for Famous Firsts / Stuart Davis / 1958
Inscription
in blue pencil, center above image: Dont [sic] touch picture surface
in black gouache, on verso: Study #2 | for Famous Firsts | Stuart Davis | 1958
Culture
Period
Materials
The Downtown Gallery, New York; Mr. and Mrs. John E. Stauffer, Worcester, Massachusetts, 1959
- "Acquisitions of the Art Museum 1982", Record of the Art Museum, Princeton University 42, no. 1 (1983): p. 50-70., p. 50
- John Wilmerding et al., American Art in the Princeton University Art Museum: volume 1: drawings and watercolors, (Princeton: Princeton University Art Museum; New Haven, CT; London: Yale University Press, 2004), p. 87, fig. 1; pp. 301–302, checklist no. 140; p. 302 (left half of verso, rotated illus.)
