Arboretum by Flashbulb

Stuart Davis

1942 · Oil on canvas · Modern and Contemporary Art

This composition embodies the syncopated rhythms of American jazz and the dynamism of modern life. Working with a limited palette of just five colors, plus black and white, the artist produced a tour-de-force of patterns, shapes, color combinations, and spatial ambiguities. Abstracted almost beyond recognition, the image is based on a garden, momentarily illuminated by the yellow-and-red light of a camera flash.

Artist

Stuart Davis

Date

1942

Medium

Oil on canvas

Department

Modern and Contemporary Art

Credit line

Edith and Milton Lowenthal Collection, Bequest of Edith Abrahamson Lowenthal, 1991