Without Pause - Enters, Touches, Passes
Artist
Arthur Bowen Davies
(American, 1862–1928)
Date1927
Mediumoil on canvas
Dimensionscanvas: 66.2 x 101.8 cm (26 1/16 x 40 1/16 in.)
ClassificationsPaintings
Credit LineMuseum Purchase
Terms
Object number1928.30
Label TextArthur B. Davies is important as an artist, connoisseur, and dynamic force in the development and acceptance of modern art in America. As an artist, he repeatedly created idyllic images of grace and beauty. As a connoisseur, he collected and advised others to collect the art works of the European and American avant-garde. As the organizer of the Armory Show of 1913, the exhibition which introduced America to contemporary European trends in art, his importance as a force in the American art scene cannot be overrated.
Throughout his career, Davies reworked the theme of the nude figure in movement. As in many of his works, Davies here repeats figures in a frieze-like arrangement in positions of successive gesture. The term "continuous composition" was used by Davies to describe this format. Its sources are many and include the wall paintings of Pompeii, the choreographic arrangements of the French modernist Puvis de Chavannes, and the magical movements of the dancer Isadora Duncan.
Provenance(N.E. Montross, New York, ?-1928); WAM, 1928On View
Not on view
