Bowdoin College Museum of Art | - Study for "Poster Portrait: Dove"

Preview image of work. graphite, Study for "Poster Portrait: Dove" 29459

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Study for "Poster Portrait: Dove"

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Artist

Charles Henry Demuth (Lancaster, Pennsylvania, 11/8/1883 - 10/23/1935, Lancaster, Pennsylvania)

Title

Study for "Poster Portrait: Dove"

Creation Date

ca. 1924

Century

early 20th century

Dimensions

8 1/4 x 10 5/8 in. (20.96 x 26.99 cm)

Object Type

drawing

Creation Place

North America, United States

Medium and Support

graphite

Credit Line

Yale University Art Gallery, Gift of Dr. and Mrs. William R. Hill in memory of Richard Weyand, photo credit: Yale University Art Gallery

Copyright

This artwork may be under copyright. For further information, please consult the Museum’s Copyright Terms and Conditions.

This sheet is a preparatory drawing for Demuth’s “poster portrait” of Arthur Dove. In the colorful final version, the white letters spelling the artist’s family name hover, bird-like, in the sky at top. The sickle alludes to Dove’s aesthetic path clearing and the knotted crimson band around the tool’s handle recalls “Reds", the nickname for Dove’s partner Helen Torr (who had red hair). Around the time of this study’s execution, Alfred Stieglitz encouraged his stable of artists—including Dove—to foreground “homegrown”, rather than European, visual traditions. Thus, Demuth allies his portrait subject with the literal and figurative fertility of American soil. The grapes and hops, key ingredients in alcoholic beverages, reference Dove’s brewing skills. Metaphorically they associate the artist with the transformative process of fermentation.