Arthur Dove American, 1880-1946
Music, 1913
Oil on canvas
16 x 12 inches
40.6 x 30.5 cm
40.6 x 30.5 cm
Signed, dated and inscribed on the stretcher: Music / 1913 / Dove
Painted in 1913—the year of the landmark Armory show, the first large exhibition of modern art in the United States—Music represents one of the earliest non-objective compositions produced by an...
Painted in 1913—the year of the landmark Armory show, the first large exhibition of modern art in the United States—Music represents one of the earliest non-objective compositions produced by an American artist, and globally. The rhythmic repetition of geometric forms evokes advancements made by contemporaneous painters of the Synchromism movement whose mission was to express a complex relationship between art and music. Music represents Dove’s first foray into the visual depiction of sound, a motif to which the artist returned throughout his career.
Provenance
The artist; toWilliam C. Dove (the artist's son), Mattituck, New York, until at least 1984;
[Salander-O'Reilly Galleries, New York];
Private collection; to
Estate of the above; by descent to
Private collection
Exhibitions
Schoelkopf Gallery, New York, Arthur Dove: Yes, I Could Paint a Cyclone, September 29–December 1, 2023Literature
William Innes Homer, Alfred Stieglitz and the American Avant-Garde, Boston: New York Graphic Society, 1977, illus. p. 211Ann Lee Morgan, Arthur Dove: Life and Work, With a Catalogue Raisonné, Newark: University of Delaware Press, 1984, p. 114, no. 13.1, illus., as c. 1913, cardboard
Melanie Kirschner, Arthur Dove: Watercolors and Pastels, New York: George Braziller, 1998, pp. 34-35
Debra Bricker Balken, Arthur Dove: A Catalogue Raisonné of Paintings and Things, New Haven: Yale University Press, 2021, p. 87, no. 1913.1, illus. in color, as oil on cardboard
Arthur Dove: Yes, I Could Paint a Cyclone. New York: Schoelkopf Gallery, 2023, p. 22, pl. 3, pp. 62–63, illus. in color, p. 153, illus. in color.
