Stuart Davis 1892 - 1964

Albert and Marion Norton Lefcourt, New York, 1940
Marion Norton Grudin
Gift to the present owner from the above, 1980

Washington, D.C., National Art Week Exhibition, November-December 1940
New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art; San Francisco, California, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Stuart Davis, American Painter, November 1991-June 1992, no. 126, p. 255, illustrated in color p. 253

Brian O'Doherty, American Masters: The Voice and the Myth, New York, 1973, p. 56
Ani Boyajian and Mark Rutkoski eds., Stuart Davis: A Catalogue Raisonné, New Haven, Connecticut, 2007, vol. III, no. 1631, p. 318, illustrated in color

This painting is in very good condition. Lined. Under UV: there is one small spot of inpainting in the upper right extreme edge, possibly to address frame abrasion. The tacking edges are slightly detached from the painting itself. For a more detailed condition report prepared by Simon Parkes Art Conservation, Inc., please contact the American Art department.
In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective qualified opinion.
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Stuart Davis returned to the United States from a two year sojourn in Paris, just months before the October 1929 stock market crash. While the streets and buildings of Paris and New York dominated Davis' journals, other places also held an attraction. The small town of Gloucester, Massachusetts, a popular summer retreat, as well as neighboring Rockport, would become highly influential, appearing in his work for decades to come.

Encouraged by fellow artist John Sloan, Davis spent his first summer in Gloucester in 1915. While there Davis became fascinated by the architectural elements and details of a working harbor. The strong angles of local buildings and the endless maze of boats' rigging interested Davis both as subject matter and for their potential value in demonstrating his theories of abstraction. In later years, the area became a refuge and an ongoing source of artistic inspiration.

Between 1930 and 1940, Davis produced a series of works based on a specific site in Rockport, which he captured in a photograph (Fig. 1) at the request of Alfred H. Barr, the noted American art historian and first director of the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. The image depicts a view, set east from the Rockport town square, looking northwest across the harbor toward Pigeon Hill. The photograph is bisected by a massive tree at the left and a telephone pole at the right.

In 1930, Davis produced the first three works from the series, two sketches and a major oil painting (Private Collection) once owned by the Museum of Modern Art, which record the artist's initial representation of the location. In 1940, Davis produced Summer Landscape #2, along with three other works, enabling the artist to further explore and deconstruct the image. In the present work, the objective world is symbolized with abstracted forms and overlapping blocks of bold color. Davis engages a palette of green, pink, yellow, blue, black and white to transcribe the visual information into his own unique vision of form and space.