Arthur Bowen Davies

Montross Gallery, New York

Lillie P. Bliss, New York (acquired before 1931)

Mr. and Mrs. Cornelius J. Sullivan, New York

Parke-Bernet, New York, 6 December 1939, lot 79 (consigned by the Estate of the above)

[with] The Milch Galleries, New York

[with] Associated American Artists, New York

Encyclopædia Britannica Collection, Chicago, Illinois (acquired by 1945)

Senator William Benton, New York and Southport, Connecticut (acquired from the above)

Helen Benton, New York (acquired by descent circa 1973 from the Estate of the above)

Salander O'Reilly Galleries, Inc., New York

Acquired from the above circa late 1980s by the present owner

New York, Montross Gallery, Special Exhibition: Arthur B. Davies, Walt Kuhn, Jules Pascin, Charles Sheeler, Max Weber, 1917, no. 11

New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Memorial Exhibition of the Works of Arthur B. Davies, 1930, no. 105, p. 15, illustrated

Springfield, Massachusetts, Springfield Museum of Fine Arts, Opening Exhibition, 1933, no. 109, p. 32

Art Institute of Chicago, Encyclopædia Britannica Collection of Contemporary American Paintings, 1945, no. 30

Suita, Japan, World Exposition, Encyclopædia Britannica Pavilion and Hartford, Wadsworth Atheneum, The Benton Collection: 20th Century American Painting, 1970, no. 60, p. 35

New York, Babcock Galleries, Arthur B. Davis: Realm of the Dream, 1998

Royal Cortissoz, Arthur B. Davies, New York 1931, p. 33

Grace Pagano, Catalogue of the Encyclopædia Britannica Collection of Contemporary American Painting, Chicago 1945, no. 30, illustrated

Grace Pagano, Catalogue of the Encyclopædia Britannica Collection of Contemporary American Painting, Chicago 1946, no. 31, illustrated

Born upstate in Utica, New York, Arthur B. Davies studied at the Chicago Academy of Design and Art Institute of Chicago before eventually joining the Art Students League in New York City. Although Davies initially worked as an illustrator and painted landscapes under the influence of George Inness’ tonalism, his signature symbolist style emerged around 1900 when he began painting dreamlike visions inhabited by female nudes. Although he achieved critical and financial success as a painter and became a member of “The Eight” after their landmark show at the Macbeth Galleries in 1908, Davies was equally formidable as an advocate for modern art. Most importantly, Davies organized the highly influential Armory Show of 1913, a landmark exhibition of American and international art in New York that forged a new path for modernism.

Tartessians perfectly exemplifies the creative fusion incited by the Armory Show, when early twentieth-century American realism met the Post-Impressionist movements flourishing in Europe. As a result of the exhibition, Davies applied a distinctly Cubist lens to his bucolic visions for several years thereafter, producing kaleidoscopic compositions that share more with Paul Cézanne’s bathers than Thomas Wilmer Dewing’s pastoral visions. Nine female nudes inhabit the present canvas, which Davies divides into frolicking vignettes surrounding a central standing figure, in a perfect expression of the artist’s short and important Cubist period. The figures mingle before a blue sea at the edge of a lush forest, with distant cliffs and built structures visible in the background. Davies’ title, Tartessians, indicates a Mediterranean setting, referencing a lost ancient Andalusian civilization. Tartessia was renowned for its wealth and described in the Bible as well as ancient Greek and Roman texts.

Evidently, its prime placement in Davies’ oeuvre made the work especially desirable and Tartessians possesses an exceptionally distinguished provenance. Included among the painting’s early owners are Mary Quinn Sullivan and Lillie P. Bliss, who, along with Abby Aldrich Rockefeller, and with the advice of Davies, founded New York’s Museum of Modern Art. Later, the painting entered the collection of the Encyclopædia Britannica, which was then chaired by Senator William Benton. The collection was intended to inspire an appreciation and understanding of American art and to assemble a representative group of outstanding works to illustrate in publications and include in exhibitions. Tartessians’ selection for the project reflects its importance, both as a painting by Davies and as a painting produced in the wake of the seminal Armory Show.