Stuart Davis

Edith Halpert, New York (acquired directly from the artist)

Romany Marie, New York (acquired from the above circa 1934)

Private Collection, New York (acquired from the above circa 1937)

Acquired by descent from the above by the present owner

New York, The Downtown Gallery, Stuart Davis: "The American Scene": Recent Paintings: New York and Gloucester, 1932, no. 13

West Palm Beach, Florida, Norton Gallery of Art, Stuart Davis' New York, 1985, no. 19, pp. 12, 15, illustrated p. 50 

New York, Berry-Hill Galleries, Toward a New American Cubism, 2006, pl. 17, p. 75, illustrated

Lewis Kachur, "Stuart Davis's New York," The Burlington Magazine, March 1986, vol. 128, no. 996, p. 242

Ani Boyajian and Mark Rutkoski, Stuart Davis: A Catalogue Raisonné, vol. 3, New Haven 2007, no. 1569, pp. 238-39, illustrated

Best known for his colorful abstract paintings, Stuart Davis is considered as one of the great early American modernists. Rising to fame in New York during the 1930s, his cubist-like proto-pop compositions rivaled the European avant garde and paved the way for Abstract Expressionism. Davis differentiated himself from his peers by incorporating conceptual matters into his work, particularly sociopolitical. As a Marxist and eventual National Secretary of the American Artist’s Congress, Davis sought to create art that addressed the political and social dilemmas of his time.

However, before Davis became a well-established modern master, he started his formal artistic education under the mentorship of the great Ashcan School leader, Robert Henri. Opposed to academic painting and dedicated to depicting the truth about modern life, Robert Henri and the Ashcan School were a major influence on Davis’s style and artistic vision. There, he developed the skill and ambition to produce his intricate compositions.  

During his time as Henri’s student, Davis lived in a Greenwich Village apartment above a bistro owned by Marie Marchand, more commonly known as Romany Marie. As the owner of several restaurants and bistros in the area, Marie was a major presence and patron in the early bohemian communities of New York City. Over the years, her establishments attracted the likes of Constantin Brancusi, Mardsen Hartley, Willem De Kooning, and many more. These spaces served as cultural and artistic melting pots where ideas flowed freely.

Executed in 1931, Flags is an earlier composition whose abstracted forms reference these bohemian spaces. Depicting flags blowing in the wind, the painting is filled with little clues tied to Romany’s Marie’s bistros. Notice the lamps in the upper right corner, the fire escape, the black flag resembling a dress and a shoe – Davis meticulously combines all of these subtle features to illustrate the vibrant structure and atmosphere of the New York nightlife. Completing the work and its mission, Davis spells out Romany Marie’s name in pin dots on the green band of the lower black flag. Simple yet complex, Flags can best be understood as a clever statement advertising Marie’s bohemian bistros.

Upon completion the work first belonged to Edith Halpert, a renowned New York art dealer, before being acquired by Romany Marie circa 1934.