TEACHING POETRY & AMERICAN ART

  • Introduction
    • Why Poetry and American Art?
    • Strategies
    • Disclaimer
    • About Me
  • Romanticism
    • Intro to American Romanticism (1820-1900)
    • John James Audubon
    • Thomas Cole
    • Asher Durand
    • Daniel Chester French
    • Winslow Homer
    • Albert Pinkham Ryder
    • Augustus Saint-Gaudens
    • "Illuminated Gems of Sacred Poetry"
    • "Indian Summer: Autumn Poems and Sketches"
  • Realism / Social Realism
    • Realism >
      • Intro to Realism (1900-1920)
      • George Bellows
      • Edwin Dawes
      • Thomas Eakins
      • Edward Hopper
      • Thomas Hovenden
      • John Sloan
    • Social Realism >
      • Intro to Social Realism (1920-1940)
      • Walker Evans
      • Dorothea Lange
      • Ben Shahn
  • Regionalism
    • Intro to Regionalism (1920-1940)
    • Thomas Hart Benton
    • Maynard Dixon
    • Grant Wood
  • Modernism
    • Intro to Modernism (1910-1940)
    • Stuart Davis
    • Charles Demuth
    • Marsden Hartley
    • Georgia O'Keeffe
  • Harlem Renaissance
    • Intro to Harlem Renaissance (1920-1940)
    • Aaron Douglas
    • Meta Warrick Fuller
    • Jacob Lawrence
    • Faith Ringgold
    • Carl Van Vechten
    • Hale Woodruff
  • Abstract Expressionism
    • Intro to Abstract Expressionism / New York School (1940-1960)
    • Morris Graves
    • Red Grooms
    • Philip Guston
    • Grace Hartigan
    • Kenneth Patchen
    • Dorothea Tanning
    • Walasse Ting
    • Cy Twombly
  • Postmodern/Contemporary
    • Intro to Postmodern / Contemporary Art (1950-present)
    • Visual Poetry
    • Louise Bourgeois
    • Joseph Goldyne
    • Elizabeth Murray
    • Jeff Schlanger
    • Kiki Smith
    • Jaune Q. Smith
  • More Resources
  • Introduction
    • Why Poetry and American Art?
    • Strategies
    • Disclaimer
    • About Me
  • Romanticism
    • Intro to American Romanticism (1820-1900)
    • John James Audubon
    • Thomas Cole
    • Asher Durand
    • Daniel Chester French
    • Winslow Homer
    • Albert Pinkham Ryder
    • Augustus Saint-Gaudens
    • "Illuminated Gems of Sacred Poetry"
    • "Indian Summer: Autumn Poems and Sketches"
  • Realism / Social Realism
    • Realism >
      • Intro to Realism (1900-1920)
      • George Bellows
      • Edwin Dawes
      • Thomas Eakins
      • Edward Hopper
      • Thomas Hovenden
      • John Sloan
    • Social Realism >
      • Intro to Social Realism (1920-1940)
      • Walker Evans
      • Dorothea Lange
      • Ben Shahn
  • Regionalism
    • Intro to Regionalism (1920-1940)
    • Thomas Hart Benton
    • Maynard Dixon
    • Grant Wood
  • Modernism
    • Intro to Modernism (1910-1940)
    • Stuart Davis
    • Charles Demuth
    • Marsden Hartley
    • Georgia O'Keeffe
  • Harlem Renaissance
    • Intro to Harlem Renaissance (1920-1940)
    • Aaron Douglas
    • Meta Warrick Fuller
    • Jacob Lawrence
    • Faith Ringgold
    • Carl Van Vechten
    • Hale Woodruff
  • Abstract Expressionism
    • Intro to Abstract Expressionism / New York School (1940-1960)
    • Morris Graves
    • Red Grooms
    • Philip Guston
    • Grace Hartigan
    • Kenneth Patchen
    • Dorothea Tanning
    • Walasse Ting
    • Cy Twombly
  • Postmodern/Contemporary
    • Intro to Postmodern / Contemporary Art (1950-present)
    • Visual Poetry
    • Louise Bourgeois
    • Joseph Goldyne
    • Elizabeth Murray
    • Jeff Schlanger
    • Kiki Smith
    • Jaune Q. Smith
  • More Resources

Charles Demuth (1883-1935)

BIOGRAPHY
Charles Demuth studied at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, Philadelphia. In 1907 he traveled to Europe, and spent 1912 through 1914 in Paris. Although aware of contemporary European movements, Demuth's early work is traditional. He made money illustrating fiction, including Edgar Allan Poe, and painted vaudeville and circus subjects in watercolor, like Acrobats (1919). In 1917, Demuth holidayed in Bermuda with soon-to-be fellow Modernist Marsden Hartley, and over the next decade developed a precisionist style and iconography. He took industry and architecture as his subjects and, encouraged by Marcel Duchamp, embraced technology. Machinery (1920), is typically precisionist, spare, elegant, and objective. Industrial buildings with their essentially geometric shapes responded well to simplification into cubes, planes, cylinders, and 'lines of force’ (a concept from Futurism which intended to convey the directional tendencies of objects through space). Demuth incorporated these elements into works like My Egypt (1927; New York, Whitney Mus.), a powerful yet delicate symmetrical study of grain elevators. In the late 1920s he created ‘poster portraits’ synthesizing words, numbers, and objects associated with the subject. I saw the figure five in gold (1928), an evocation of the poet William Carlos Williams, is the best known.

RESOURCES

 1. I saw the figure five in gold (1928) / William Carlos Williams
 2. ​Works of art by Charles Demuth in the Crystal Bridges Museum main collection:
​ Still Life with Pears (front); Red Apples (back) ; Sail: In Two Movements ; In Vaudeville ; Tree Forms ; Cyclamen ; Houses; Eggplant and Peppers ; Calla Lilies (Bert Savoy) ; Red and Yellow Flowers ; Oranges and Artichokes

REFERENCES

​Rodgers, David
. "Demuth, Charles." The Oxford Companion to Western Art. Ed. Hugh Brigstocke. Oxford Art Online. Oxford University Press. Web. <http://www.oxfordartonline.com/subscriber/article/opr/t118/e717>.
Artwork behind title: Demuth's Houses (detail), Crystal Bridges Museum
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