Stuart Davis

Stuart Davis (December 7, 1892 – June 24, 1964), was an early American modernist painter. He was well known for his jazz-influenced, proto pop art paintings of the 1940s and 1950s, bold, brash, and colorful, as well as his ashcan pictures in the early years of the 20th century.

Quotes of Stuart Davis

• I think of Abstract Art in the same way I think of all Art, Past and Present. I see it as divided into two Major categories, Objective and Subjective. Objective Art is Absolute Art. Subjective Art is Illustration, or communication by Symbols, Replicas, and Oblique Emotional Passes. They are both Art, but their Content has no Identity. Their difference cannot be defined as a difference of Idiom, because all Paintings have the Laws of Design as a common denominator. Design exists as an Idiom of Color-Space Logic, and it also exists in an Idiom of Representational Likenesses. Objective Art and Subjective Art exist in both Idioms. Their difference can only be defined in terms of what the Artist thinks his Purpose means-its Content as a Design Image.
  • In: George L. K. Morris, Willem De Kooning, Alexander Calder, Fritz Glarner, Robert Motherwell, Stuart Davis. "What Abstract Art Means to Me," in: The Bulletin of the Museum of Modern Art, Vol. 18, No. 3, (Spring, 1951), pp. 2-15

• I paint what I see in America, in other words I paint the American scene.
  • Cited in: Ian Chilvers, "Davis, Stuart," in: The Oxford Dictionary of Art, (2994). p. 195

Quotes about Stuart Davis

• Stuart Davis.. ..is one of but few, who realized his canvas as a.. .. two-dimensional surface plane.
  • Arshile Gorky, in Stuart Davis, Creative Art 9, September 1931, p. 213

• We all grasped on everything new, and despite the atmosphere of New York [ in the 1930's] worked on everything but our own identities. I make exceptions for Graham and Davis, especially Davis, who though at his least recognized or exhibited stage was the solid citizen for a group a bit younger who were trying to find their stride.
  • David Smith, in a note-and-sketchbook that Smith kept c. 1952; as quoted in 'Atmosphere of the early Thirties, website David Smith State