Bermuda No.3 - The Tower (recto); Landscape with House (verso)

Charles DemuthWW-1917-135875

1917·Watercolor over graphite (recto and verso) on off-white wove paper·25.4 × 35.4 cm (10 × 13 15/16 in.)

<p>A native of Pennsylvania, Charles Demuth studied at the Drexel Institute of Art, Science, and Industry, and then the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. In February 1917, he traveled with friend and fellow artist Mardsen Hartley to Bermuda, where he painted this watercolor. Here elements of Analytical Cubism intersect with the American Watercolor Revival’s emphasis on vibrant effects created by light passing through thin veils of color. While on a trip to Europe, the collectors Gertrude and Leo Stein introduced Demuth to the work of Paul Cézanne, Pablo Picasso, and Georges Braque; back in the United States, he developed a more restrained, evocative form of Cubism than his European contemporaries.</p>

Catalogue

Year: 1917
Medium: Watercolor over graphite (recto and verso) on off-white wove paper
Dimensions: 25.4 × 35.4 cm (10 × 13 15/16 in.)
Collection: Art Institute of Chicago
Artist: Charles Demuth

Artist

Charles Demuth

Painting

Charles Demuth was an American painter who developed a distinctive approach to modernism through sharply angled, semi-abstract compositions of industrial structures, flowers, and architectural forms. Working primarily in watercolor and oil, he synthesized Cubist fragmentation with precise linear geometry and a restrained palette of grays and warm ochres. His paintings of grain elevators and factory buildings transformed utilitarian American landscapes into formal studies of intersecting planes and light. Demuth's work bridged European modernist abstraction and American precisionist aesthetics during the early twentieth century.

Lancaster, PA, USA

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