Stuart Davis

Between 1961 and 1963, Stuart Davis produced a series of works based on a photograph he clipped from The New York Times in 1959. Captioned “A view of Carcassonne, France,” this photograph depicted a fortified village in the Occitanie region of France. With its arched entrances and double-walled fortifications, this medieval citadel captivated the draftsman in Davis. Closed Circuit, executed in 1962, is one of several drawings Davis produced in response to this neo-Gothic French village in his signature style of reduced forms applied in a vibrant palette.

In the late 1920s and 1930s, Davis engaged with architectural subject matter in a much more literal way. From the New York skyline to the quiet streets outside his studio at 50 rue Vercingétorix in the 14^th arrondissement, Davis preoccupied himself with sketching his architectural surroundings for years. His earlier drawings from New York and Paris highlight Davis’s skill as a draftsman, while his later works such as Closed Circuit demonstrate a shift toward abstraction, and a growing interest in simplifying his compositions. Davis effectively utilizes his palette of green, red, yellow, black and white to transcribe the view of Carcassonne from the photograph into a harmonious and reduced arrangement of forms. The curvature of his linework softens the rigid stone exterior of the French castle and the overall simplification of forms speaks to Davis’s maturity as an artist and affinity for modernism in the 1960s. Davis ultimately completed seven different drawings from this photograph – each one compositionally unique and reflective of his mature style.