Lot Essay
In his 1932 Factory by the Sea, Stuart Davis typically combines the elements no other important artist was able to reconcile: American Scene themes and a Modernist vision. In the February 1, 1942, issue of Art News Davis insisted: "...I have enjoyed the dynamic American scene for many years past, and all of my pictures...are referential to it."
The America of Stuart Davis was not conducive to literal images rendered with atmospheric and linear perspective. Davis, who felt America was profoundly and irreversibly affected by such inventions as the radio, telephone, telegraph and airplane, would contend that he more accurately captured the hectic pace of the modern nation than artists who worked in more traditional styles. Scenes previously viewed on foot or from a horse-drawn carriage flashed before one's eyes in rapid succession from the window of a speeding car or plane, and sounds and voices traveled thousands of miles in seconds. "Science has created a new environment," Davis asserted, "in which new forms, lights, speeds and spaces are a reality. The perspectives and chiaroscuro of the Renaissance are no longer physically with us, even though their ghosts linger in many of the best modern work." (Art News, 2/1/42).
The setting for Factory by the Sea is probably Gloucester, where Davis made many sketches in the summer of 1932. Ten years later, the town was the only specific place he cited on a long list of items he said inspired him to paint. In this gouache, Davis applies his theory of angular picture construction. John R. Lane notes that, in the early 1930s, "Davis had settled on the angle as a fundamental constructive element of the picture-making process...the primary unit of variety...the point where a change of direction takes place." (Stuart Davis: Art and Art Theory, p. 15).
In American Master Drawings and Watercolors, Theodore E. Stebbins, Jr. describes Davis' angle pictures of this period as "constructed with typically consistent, thick line, laid down with care as the artist observes the real work, then records it as a flat image with multiple perspectives." (p. 325) Unlike Davits (Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University), Landscape (The Brooklyn Museum) and Nautical Shapes (Minnesota Museum of Art), examples of angle-theory pictures which are monochromatic, Davis filled sections of Factory with bright colors. This perhaps anticipates his later insistence on brilliantly colored mosaics, in works such as 1943's Ultramarine (Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts). William Agee, in a letter dated April 22, 1989, refers to this work as one of the best in an important series for the artist.
This painting will be included in William Agee's forthcoming catalogue raisonné of the artist's work.
The America of Stuart Davis was not conducive to literal images rendered with atmospheric and linear perspective. Davis, who felt America was profoundly and irreversibly affected by such inventions as the radio, telephone, telegraph and airplane, would contend that he more accurately captured the hectic pace of the modern nation than artists who worked in more traditional styles. Scenes previously viewed on foot or from a horse-drawn carriage flashed before one's eyes in rapid succession from the window of a speeding car or plane, and sounds and voices traveled thousands of miles in seconds. "Science has created a new environment," Davis asserted, "in which new forms, lights, speeds and spaces are a reality. The perspectives and chiaroscuro of the Renaissance are no longer physically with us, even though their ghosts linger in many of the best modern work." (Art News, 2/1/42).
The setting for Factory by the Sea is probably Gloucester, where Davis made many sketches in the summer of 1932. Ten years later, the town was the only specific place he cited on a long list of items he said inspired him to paint. In this gouache, Davis applies his theory of angular picture construction. John R. Lane notes that, in the early 1930s, "Davis had settled on the angle as a fundamental constructive element of the picture-making process...the primary unit of variety...the point where a change of direction takes place." (Stuart Davis: Art and Art Theory, p. 15).
In American Master Drawings and Watercolors, Theodore E. Stebbins, Jr. describes Davis' angle pictures of this period as "constructed with typically consistent, thick line, laid down with care as the artist observes the real work, then records it as a flat image with multiple perspectives." (p. 325) Unlike Davits (Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University), Landscape (The Brooklyn Museum) and Nautical Shapes (Minnesota Museum of Art), examples of angle-theory pictures which are monochromatic, Davis filled sections of Factory with bright colors. This perhaps anticipates his later insistence on brilliantly colored mosaics, in works such as 1943's Ultramarine (Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts). William Agee, in a letter dated April 22, 1989, refers to this work as one of the best in an important series for the artist.
This painting will be included in William Agee's forthcoming catalogue raisonné of the artist's work.