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| Arthur Dove |
| 1880-1946 |
| American Artist |
| Raised in upstate New York, Dove studied law at Cornell University before deciding, in 1903, to pursue a career in art. He moved to New York City, securing work as a freelance magazine illustrator. A trip to Europe in 1908, introduced Dove to the vivid color and decorative patterning of Henri Matisse and the Fauves, as well as to the ordered pictorial structures of Paul Cezanne. Upon his return to New York, he joined the circle of progressive artists supported by Alfred Stieglitz, and began a series of small, daring, non-objective paintings. Dove was one of the first American artists to experiment with complete abstraction. These abstractions, first exhibited in 1912, presented observations and sensations distilled from the external world, rendered as bold, overlapping forms that denied illusionistic space while exuding a dynamic energy. Dove acknowledged nature as the basis of this art. |
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