.jpg?w=1)
Lot Essay
Charles Demuth's still lifes in watercolor are the best known works of his career and "are indeed remarkable in the way in which they demonstrate the artist's capacity to extract the essential character of a flower or other object as well as his tender, 'affectionate attitude toward the commonplace.'" (E. Farnham, Charles Demuth: His Life, Psychology and Works, Columbus, Ohio, 1959, p. 295) Executed circa 1925, Nosegay was created when Demuth's creativity and output was at its height. The work is comprised of a bouquet of campanulas and cosmos in thin washes of purple and yellow tones, highlighted by varying verdant hues of the stems and leaves. The petals of the blossoms are delicately painted, reflecting Demuth's fascination and passion for flowers.
Demuth's richly painted flowers are almost invariably common varieties that might be found in any garden. As Carol Troyen observes, "In most of the watercolors of the '20s, Demuth's preferred subjects were not hothouse flowers, but ordinary ones such as these, seemingly artlessly arranged in tribute to their natural beauty." To this everyday subject matter Demuth applies an innovative technique, particularly in his later still life compositions, which often revolve around his use of "negative" space devoid of pigments. By the 1920s, Demuth began to more fully explore the spatial possibilities of his subjects, increasingly isolating fruit or flowers in his work against a white background, and relying on spare pencil lines to suggest details. In this way Demuth creates a tension between painted and unpainted elements of his compositions. Each work is complete and yet many compositional elements are themselves unfinished.
In Nosegay, Demuth uses the white of the paper as a forceful element in the painting. Emily Farnham discusses his experimentation with this new artistic device: "Still another factor in Demuth which seems to have affected the New Realism is his frequent use of a pristine, immaculate, antiseptic white ground. It was notably in his watercolor still lifes that he habitually placed exquisitely delineated positive objects (peaches, eggplant, striped kitchen towels) against a luminous unpainted ground. This device has reappeared during the sixties in the works of Californian [Wayne] Thiebaud, who employs pure white grounds behind relief-like human figures as means toward the psychological and technical isolation of his subjects." (Charles Demuth: Behind a Laughing Mask, Norman, Oklahoma, 1971, p. 185) Nosegay exemplifies Demuth's progressive method, most prominently with the unpainted blossoms and stems defined chiefly by their penciled outline. In places he uses almost pure color which, in visual terms, seems to vibrate on the page, creating an immediacy and beauty that were Demuth's chief aims, while effectively highlighting the brilliant flowers in the center of the subject.
In Nosegay, as in all of his most successful watercolors, Demuth creates a picture of vivid beauty, captured with crisp draftsmanship and sure sense of color. Most effectively through his still life subjects, Charles Demuth developed a unique artistic vision that has transformed the recent history of American watercolor painting.
Demuth's richly painted flowers are almost invariably common varieties that might be found in any garden. As Carol Troyen observes, "In most of the watercolors of the '20s, Demuth's preferred subjects were not hothouse flowers, but ordinary ones such as these, seemingly artlessly arranged in tribute to their natural beauty." To this everyday subject matter Demuth applies an innovative technique, particularly in his later still life compositions, which often revolve around his use of "negative" space devoid of pigments. By the 1920s, Demuth began to more fully explore the spatial possibilities of his subjects, increasingly isolating fruit or flowers in his work against a white background, and relying on spare pencil lines to suggest details. In this way Demuth creates a tension between painted and unpainted elements of his compositions. Each work is complete and yet many compositional elements are themselves unfinished.
In Nosegay, Demuth uses the white of the paper as a forceful element in the painting. Emily Farnham discusses his experimentation with this new artistic device: "Still another factor in Demuth which seems to have affected the New Realism is his frequent use of a pristine, immaculate, antiseptic white ground. It was notably in his watercolor still lifes that he habitually placed exquisitely delineated positive objects (peaches, eggplant, striped kitchen towels) against a luminous unpainted ground. This device has reappeared during the sixties in the works of Californian [Wayne] Thiebaud, who employs pure white grounds behind relief-like human figures as means toward the psychological and technical isolation of his subjects." (Charles Demuth: Behind a Laughing Mask, Norman, Oklahoma, 1971, p. 185) Nosegay exemplifies Demuth's progressive method, most prominently with the unpainted blossoms and stems defined chiefly by their penciled outline. In places he uses almost pure color which, in visual terms, seems to vibrate on the page, creating an immediacy and beauty that were Demuth's chief aims, while effectively highlighting the brilliant flowers in the center of the subject.
In Nosegay, as in all of his most successful watercolors, Demuth creates a picture of vivid beauty, captured with crisp draftsmanship and sure sense of color. Most effectively through his still life subjects, Charles Demuth developed a unique artistic vision that has transformed the recent history of American watercolor painting.