Arthur Dove: Yes, I Could Paint a Cyclone presents a dynamic survey of increasingly nonrepresentational works that trace Dove’s evolution as a painter and reveal his unyielding interrogation of established artistic convention. Dove’s earliest expression of his unique nonrepresentational style marks the first sustained effort in developing non-figuration by an American artist. His mature work was motivated by a desire to express, or “extract,” as he explained, his experience of the ephemeral elements of his surroundings—such as wind, rain, light, and sound—rather than to depict a realist observation of the environment.
His extraordinary late pictures feature flat geometric and biomorphic forms and bold color that anticipate subsequent developments in post-war movements such as Abstract Expressionism and Color Field Painting. Yes, I Could Paint a Cyclone unites more than 70 important works in oil, pastel, watercolor, and charcoal from distinguished foundations and private collections throughout North America.
The exhibition is accompanied by a fully illustrated scholarly catalogue featuring texts by leading scholar Rachael DeLue, Professor in American art at Princeton and author of the monograph Arthur Dove: Always Connect (2016).
To purchase a copy of the accompanying catalgoue, please click here:
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Arthur Dove
March, April, 1929The explosive kaleidoscopic plume in March, April recalls Dove’s words from a review of his 1912 exhibition at Thurber Galleries: “Yes, I could paint a cyclone. Not in the usual sweeps of grey wind over earth, trees bending and furious sky above, I would paint the misty folds of the wind in comprehensive colors. I would show repetitions and convolutions of the range of the tempest. I would paint the wind and a landscape chastised by the cyclone.” [1] The circular form with radiating concentric rings is a deeply personal motif in his creative lexicon. To Dove this imagery symbolizes vitality and energy. Occupying the liminal zone between abstraction and representation, March, April is a vibrant example of Dove’s fascination with the physical forces of the earth. The artist brought March, April, which he had just finished, to Alfred Stieglitz on April 19, 1929. The following day, Stieglitz wrote to Dove: “March, April has already been carried off—$200.—You were willing to take $100.” [2]
[1] Dove, quoted in H. Effa Webster, “Artist Paints Rhythms of Color: Works Are Most Strange and Confusing; Need No Titles,” Chicago Examiner, March 15, 1912, 5.
[2] Alfred Stieglitz to Arthur Dove, April 20, 1929, in Ann Lee Morgan, ed., Dear Stieglitz, Dear Dove (Newark: University of Delaware Press, 1988), 171.
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In 1930, Arthur Dove took a page from the playbook of his nineteenth-century artistic forbears and began sketching out of doors on a regular basis, producing dozens of watercolors, many of which he used as the basis for his paintings. Dove based Brickyard Shed, for example, on a watercolor sketch he made on the spot, in front of the motif. The lyrical lines, staccato brush marks, and fluid washes of the sketch register the rapidity with which Dove recorded his impressions of the subject as well as his pleasure in doing so.
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If you would enjoy learning more about the available works, please contact Alana Ricca at (212) 879-8815, or alana@schoelkopfgallery.com. We look forward to being in touch.
