Stuart Davis 1892-1964

The Downtown Gallery, New York, 1932
Dr. H. A. Blutman, New York, 1945
Edith Gregor Halpert, New York, by 1952 (sold: Parke Bernet Galleries, New York, March 14-15, 1973, lot 50, illustrated in color)
Acquired by the present owners at the above sale

New York, The Downtown Gallery, Stuart Davis Recent Paintings: Oil and Watercolor, April-May 1934, no. 10 (as Winch)
Chicago, Illinois, The Arts Club of Chicago, 3 Contemporary Americans: Karl Zerbe, Stuart Davis, Ralston Crawford, February 1945, no. 9
Springfield, Missouri, Springfield Art Museum, Loan Exhibition of American Paintings and Prints: The Edith Gregor Halpert Collection, May-June 1949
Venice, Italy, United States Pavilion, XXVI Biennale di Venezia, June-October 1952, no. 5
New York, The Downtown Gallery, Retrospective Exhibition of Paintings by Stuart Davis and Yasuo Kuniyoshi: Paintings from the 1952 Biennale in Venice, December 1952
University Park, Pennsylvania, Pennsylvania State University, 1956
Washington, D.C., The Corcoran Gallery of Art, A Loan Exhibition from the Edith Gregor Halpert Collection, January-February 1960, no. 8
Washington, D.C., The Corcoran Gallery of Art, The Edith Gregor Halpert Collection, September-November 1962
Utica, New York, Munson-Williams Proctor Institute; New York, Armory of the Sixty-Ninth Regiment, 1913 Armory Show: 50th Anniversary Exhibition 1963, February-April 1963
Santa Barbara, California, Santa Barbara Museum of Art; Honolulu, Hawaii, Honolulu Academy of Arts; San Francisco, California, California Palace of the Legion of Honor, Loan Exhibition from the Edith Gregor Halpert Collection, August 1963-February 1964, no. 8
Fort Worth, Texas, Fort Worth Art Museum, Twentieth Century Art from the Fort Worth Dallas Collections, September-October 1974
Dallas, Texas, Dallas Museum of Fine Arts, Dallas Collects American Paintings: Colonial to Early Modern: An Exhibition of Paintings from Private Collections in Dallas, September-November 1982, no. 55, p. 135, illustrated p. 134

Howard Devree, "By Contemporaries: Davis and Kuniyoshi as Seen in Venice", New York Times, December 14, 1952, sec. 2, pt. 2, p. 9
H.H. Arnason, Stuart Davis Memorial Exhibition, 1894-1964, Washington, D.C., 1965, p. 27
Ellen Lawrence, Graham, Gorky, Smith & Davis in the Thirties, Providence, Rhode Island, 1977, p. 31
Philip Rylands, ed., Stuart Davis, New York, 1997, p. 5
Ani Boyajian and Mark Rutkoski, Stuart Davis: A Catalogue Raisonné, Vol. III, New Haven, Connecticut, 2007, no. 1591, p. 268, illustrated in color

Good condition, lined, some craquelure, particularly in white background; under UV: some scattered retouching mostly in lower right quadrant of white background, specifically under and to right of orange polygon. A few other scattered pindots in background and around the edges, otherwise fine.
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.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING CONDITION OF A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD "AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF SALE PRINTED IN THE CATALOGUE.

During the early 1930s, Stuart Davis' keen eye turned to Gloucester's crowded working harbor.  Ships' ropes, riggings and other nautical subject matter provided a dynamic improvisational source of ever-changing horizontal and vertical lines and a perfect visual vocabulary for Davis' developing geometric theories. Between 1930 and 1933, Davis purposefully and meticulously worked out what he termed in a 1932 letter to Edith Halpert, his "new style".

 

1932 was also the year Davis painted Composition with Winch. He wrote in his sketchbook journal, "One must see the 'shapes' of the space not the shapes of the objects that occur in it." Here, Davis paints a complex maze of strong black lines which weave through and around solid colorful forms against a pure white background. Davis allows the "negative" space behind the grid of lines to function as physical aspects of the composition - shapes made of pure space. The lines are intermittently attached or "rigged" to abstract forms loosely resembling winches or pulleys, the powerful machines used to coil ropes and cables used for hoisting. 

 

"In his subsequent fusion of line with color and pattern, Davis provides recognizable elements as entry points for the viewer, while simultaneously focusing attention on factors such as the organization of color, shape and line.  This device would serve to elicit a purely emotional, intuitive response from the spectator, which he considered to be of a higher order than the work's reflected or self-evident meanings" (Lowery Stokes Sims, Stuart Davis American Painter, 1991, p. 58).