Stuart Davis: In Full Swing

Stuart Davis (1892–1964) was an American original. Born in Philadelphia to artists and raised in East Orange, New Jersey, he dropped out of high school to study painting in Manhattan with Robert Henri, the legendary teacher who urged his students to sketch daily life, read widely, ignore convention, and above all to find their own voices…With more than one hundred of his most important, visually complex compositions on view, the exhibition highlights Davis’s ability to assimilate the imagery of popular culture, the aesthetics of advertising, the lessons of cubism, and the sounds and rhythms of jazz into works that hum with intelligence and energy. Read more.

Preview the exhibition below | The top five exhibitions opening this week

Lucky Strike (1924), Stuart Davis. Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian Institution, Washington. Art © Estate of Stuart Davis/Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY

Edison Mazda (1924), Stuart Davis. Lent by The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Purchase, Mr. and Mrs. Clarence Y. Palitz Jr. Gift, in memory of her father Nathan Dobson. Art © Estate of Stuart Davis/Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY. Image © The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Image Source: Art Resource, NY

Egg Beater No. 3 (1928), Stuart Davis. Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Gift of the William H. Lane Foundation. Art © Estate of Stuart Davis/Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY. Photograph © 2016 Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

Place des Vosges No. 2 (1928), Stuart Davis. Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, Cornell University, Ithaca, Dr. and Mrs. Milton Lurie Kramer, Class of 1936, Collection, bequest of Helen Kroll Kramer. Art © Estate of Stuart Davis/Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY

Arch Hotel (1929), Stuart Davis. Sheldon Museum of Art, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Anna R. and Frank M. Hall Charitable Trust

Landscape, Gloucester (1922/1951/1957), Stuart Davis. Ted and Mary Jo Shen. Art © Estate of Stuart Davis/Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY

Little Giant Still Life (1950), Stuart Davis. Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond, The John Barton Payne Fund. Art © Estate of Stuart Davis/Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY

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