Stuart Davis

American Modernist painter Stuart Davis was born in Philadelphia in 1892 and spent much of his life in New York. He is best known for developing a unique artistic vocabulary, which was influenced by jazz, consumer culture, and the sociopolitical environment in America. Davis' father was an art editor for the Philadelphia Press and his mother was a sculptor. In 1909, Davis left home to study at the Robert Henri School of Art in New York, where he was encouraged to develop a spontaneous practice. This spurred his interest in music and visual rhythms. From 1912 to 1916, Davis worked as an illustrator for several magazines, while experimenting with cubist abstraction. During this period, he flattened and abstracted urban scenes and developed his signature use of bright colors. In 1913, Davis’ work was included in the Armory Show, which led to several museum exhibitions. Later in life, he created paintings, which referenced and appropriated earlier works. Davis is now widely recognized for his ability to translate the disorder of everyday life into spontaneous compositions.

Stuart Davis’ work has been included in group and solo shows, including the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, MoMA, New York, Cincinnati Art Museum, Ohio, Boston Institute, Art Institute of Chicago, Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, SFMOMA,The Brooklyn Museum, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, and the 1952 Venice Biennale. He received numerous fellowships and awards, including the Carnegie Institute Prize and a Guggenheim Fellowship.