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STUART DAVIS
(American, 1892-1964)
Barber Shop Chord, 1931
Lithograph on cream wove paper
14 x 19” image, 16 x 20 1/8” sheet
Purchase: Carnegie Corporation Funds 39.2

American printmaker and painter Stuart Davis began his creative career at seventeen, when he left his native Philadelphia in order to study in New York with urban realist Robert Henri (1865-1929). Davis exhibited five watercolors at the controversial Armory Show of 1913. He was undoubtedly stirred by what he saw there, because in the years following the exhibition, Davis eschewed his realist style and began to experiment with European abstract styles such as Post-Impressionism and Cubism. He soon began to develop the artistic vocabulary—consisting of geometry, precision, pattern, intersecting planes, and visual humor—that would exist within his works throughout the rest of his career. The lithographs that Davis created in 1930-1931 are considered to be some of his most successful. Barber Shop Chord is evocative of the frenetic spirit of jazz music, which Davis considered the musical equivalent of abstract art. By using texture and bold black and white contrasts in this work, Davis created the illusion of perspective and depth. He juxtaposed recognizable symbols such as the striped barbershop sign and fire hydrant with arbitrary geometric shapes and planes that float around the work of art. The placement of words within the lithograph grounds the abstract composition. Furthermore, the tower structure in the top left hand corner of the lithograph alludes to a particular setting, and links this lithograph to Davis’ realist works; this building represents one of the two brick natural gas tanks located in Gloucester, where Davis spent a number of summers.