Stuart Davis
American, 1894 – 1964
Configuration, 1946
Oil on canvas, 12 x 8 inches
Museum Purchase
1979.1.5

Stuart Davis went to Paris in 1928 to study the works of the European Modernist painters, particularly the Cubist artists and Henri Matisse. Upon his return to New York, where he spent his adult life, Stuart was inspired to paint a series of abstracted cityscapes. They combined abstract forms and suggestive shapes and words to establish a recurring visual theme in the artist's work.

The small-scale Configuration reflects Davis' skill as a bold abstractionist and colorist. Inspired by jazz and modern music, Davis painted a vibrant composition using strong color and flat graphic imagery. The jagged, sharp-edged shapes recall his early and continued interest in developing European Cubism into an American idiomatic expression. The incorporation of crisscrosses, grids, notational arrows, and other linear markings are reminiscent of his use of words in other works. Davis was a highly original and complex artist. He is considered to be one of the most important figures in the American Modernist movement of the early twentieth century.