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Lot Essay
William Murrell noted "of Demuth's work it has been written and said that it has charm, subtle harmonies, exquisiteness of suggestion, and delicacies of statement; that it is light, whimsical, and ironic; and that it is cool, clear, sure, and elegant." (Charles Demuth, New York, 1943, p. 7) Certainly Three Pears can be described in Murrell's terms. Its stark simplicity carries weight and legitimacy, while its subtle variations in tone lend rhythm to the compositions. Some of Charles Demuth's earliest known artistic ventures include the paintings he executed during his teenage years in which he "usually isolated a single stem of flowers on the page and, while rendering it botanically plausible, invested it with an anthropomorphic flippancy... Their sensibility suggests an ornamentation and precision almost Chinese in mood." (B. Haskell, Charles Demuth, New York, 1988, p. 14) During his career, Demuth explored various themes from vaudeville, to illustration to "poster portraits" to twentieth-century genre pictures, yet he continued to paint still lifes throughout.
In contrast to his floral still lifes from the mid-teens in which the artist was concerned with rendering an all-over patterning effect, his later still lifes have a spare quality. In focusing quite specifically on the fruit itself, Demuth's still lifes from the 1930s, such as Three Pears, take on a poetic quality. Barbara Haskell notes that "in all cases, Demuth captured the reflection of light as it played over the rounded surfaces of fruits and vegetables, thereby creating voluptuous three-dimensional shapes reminiscent of those in Czanne's still lifes...Not surprisingly, such fruits and vegetables were often perceived as willful evocations of body parts. Demuth continued to blot the wet watercolor medium in order to create texture, but now he also became more inclined to allow pencil-drawn silhouettes remain free of color." (Charles Demuth, p. 141)
Despite their simplicity, Demuth's watercolors, such as Three Pears, lend themselves to extremely careful study and close contemplation. No matter which aspect of his work the writer chooses to focus on, Demuth's still lifes are consistently reviewed in glowing terms. In a catalogue for a 1971 Demuth exposition, Phyllis Plous noted that Demuth "studied the essential forms of fruit and flowers just as he had acrobats and buildings, and there was a precise order everywhere without the aridity of botanical description. Where the earlier flowers had displayed gaiety with elegance the later ones had a quiet, unforced elegance and the composition was more structured. They move with an air of thistledown delicacy, exquisite in detail and stated with an almost Oriental economy of line. Demuth's technique of centering his subject in the middle of the page and employing the white of the paper of the spatial value, resulted in watercolor pictures that seem to breathe through the unpainted areas." (as quoted in T.E. Norton, ed., Homage to Charles Demuth: Still Life Painter of Lancaster, Ephrata, Pennsylvania, 1978, p. 116)
In contrast to his floral still lifes from the mid-teens in which the artist was concerned with rendering an all-over patterning effect, his later still lifes have a spare quality. In focusing quite specifically on the fruit itself, Demuth's still lifes from the 1930s, such as Three Pears, take on a poetic quality. Barbara Haskell notes that "in all cases, Demuth captured the reflection of light as it played over the rounded surfaces of fruits and vegetables, thereby creating voluptuous three-dimensional shapes reminiscent of those in Czanne's still lifes...Not surprisingly, such fruits and vegetables were often perceived as willful evocations of body parts. Demuth continued to blot the wet watercolor medium in order to create texture, but now he also became more inclined to allow pencil-drawn silhouettes remain free of color." (Charles Demuth, p. 141)
Despite their simplicity, Demuth's watercolors, such as Three Pears, lend themselves to extremely careful study and close contemplation. No matter which aspect of his work the writer chooses to focus on, Demuth's still lifes are consistently reviewed in glowing terms. In a catalogue for a 1971 Demuth exposition, Phyllis Plous noted that Demuth "studied the essential forms of fruit and flowers just as he had acrobats and buildings, and there was a precise order everywhere without the aridity of botanical description. Where the earlier flowers had displayed gaiety with elegance the later ones had a quiet, unforced elegance and the composition was more structured. They move with an air of thistledown delicacy, exquisite in detail and stated with an almost Oriental economy of line. Demuth's technique of centering his subject in the middle of the page and employing the white of the paper of the spatial value, resulted in watercolor pictures that seem to breathe through the unpainted areas." (as quoted in T.E. Norton, ed., Homage to Charles Demuth: Still Life Painter of Lancaster, Ephrata, Pennsylvania, 1978, p. 116)