Nature and emotion so dominated the subject matter of Arthur Garfield Dove’s
modernist output, that he has been credited as the first American abstract artist to fully
embrace non-representational imagery. He was one of an exceptional group of
American modernists in the 1920s, 30s and 40s who were supported and promoted by
the legendary photographer, gallerist and publisher, Alfred Stieglitz (1864 - 1946). As
well as Dove, the group included Charles Demuth (1883 - 1935), Marsden Hartley (1877
- 1943), John Marin (1870 - 1953), Georgia O’Keeffe (1887 - 1986), and Paul Strand
(1890 - 1976). From his earliest abstractions in 1911-12, Arthur Dove became the
subject of much critical discussion, though unfortunately this attention never
materialized into stable financial subsistence. However, through the support and
patronage of Stieglitz and the legendary collector and critic, Duncan Phillips (1886 -
1966) Dove was able to sustain his artistic life of painting, collage and watercolors.
Throughout a career of exhibitions and focused dedication to his craft, he would
manage to impress and influence not only his contemporaries, but legendary artists to
come.
Born in Canandaigua in the Finger Lakes region of upstate New York in 1880, Dove was
raised in nearby Geneva. He was named after the Republican presidential and vice
presidential candidates in the American election that year, James Garfield and Chester
Arthur. His father was a stonemason contractor and brick manufacturer and a prominent
figure in the Geneva community.
Dove became interested in art at an early age, having been encouraged and introduced
to painting and nature by Newton Weatherly, a neighbouring farmer, naturalist and artist.
Dove attended Hobart College before transferring and graduating from Cornell
University’s pre-law program in 1903. Despite the strong urgings of his father to follow a
a career in the law, Dove moved to New York City, at first working as an illustrator for
various popular publications including the Century, Cosmopolitan Magazine and Life. In
1904 he married a young woman from his home town, Florence Dorsey.
The conventionality of illustration work left him unsatisfied, so in May, 1908 Dove and
Florence traveled to France, where they would remain for more than a year. There he
befriended members of the New Society of American Artists including Alfred Maurer
(1868 - 1932), Max Weber (1881 - 1961) and Arthur Carles (1882 - 1952), relationships
that afforded him entry to art circles that included Matisse, Picasso, and Cézanne. Heimmersed himself in the new art in France, and exhibited Impressionist and Fauvist
inspired work in the 1909 Salon d’Autonmne.
Upon his return to New York in 1909, Dove was soon introduced to Stieglitz, who quickly
became a mentor and patriarchal figure to the young Dove, inviting him to exhibit at his
gallery 291 the following year alongside works by Marin, Hartley and Edward Steichen
(1879 - 1973). It was then that Dove abandoned any Impressionist tendencies and
began seriously experimenting with abstraction. Inspired by critical studies of the
surrounding landscape in Geneva and later Westport, Connecticut, he embarked upon a
series of wholly abstract pastels between 1911 and 1912 known collectively as the Ten
Commandments. Dove exhibited them with Stieglitz in 1912 at his first solo exhibition
‘Arthur G. Dove First Exhibition Anywhere’ (and later at Chicago’s Thurber Galleries).
With these groundbreaking images, Dove became the first American artist to make
purely abstract, nonrepresentational imagery. Only a year later, at the 1913 Armory
Show where most of America was first introduced to Europe’s avant-garde, Dove was
every bit their aesthetic equal confirming his place amongst America’s avant-garde.
Dove scholar and professor, Rachael Z. DeLue explains the importance of these
pastels, the artist’s commitment to abstraction, and Stieglitz’s effort to put him at the
forefront of America’s avant-garde, as follows, “The ‘Ten Commandments’ pastels, with
their dynamic geometries, biomorphic forms, and pulsing lines, represent Dove’s
commitment … to the idea that the work of art need not show the viewer what could
already be seen. As Dove put it, ‘I gave up trying to express an idea by stating the
innumerable little facts, that statement of facts having no more to do with the art of
painting than statistics with literature.’ In titling the 1912 exhibition ‘Arthur G. Dove First
Exhibition Anywhere’, Stieglitz erred in suggesting Dove had not yet been the subject of
a single artist show, but likely he did so purposefully, to indicate a new beginning. In this
way, the moniker, ‘Ten Commandments’ with its connotations of revelation and new
principles, befits Dove’s break with past traditions and this embrace of a new artistic
path.” 1
Though somewhat removed from the center of the New York art world, Westport
provided Dove with both a quiet sanctuary and the space to immerse himself in the
development of his aesthetic, with paintings and watercolors focused on music and
nature, demonstrating clear influences of Cubism and Expressionism. He actively
exhibited at 291, Forum Gallery and the Society of Independent Artists, and made the
acquaintance of newly arrived avant-garde artists coming to post-WWI America. He also
experimented with collages and assemblages, much like his European counterparts, as
a release from his painted works.
Critical reviews were mixed, and audiences had a difficult time connecting with his work.
This, on top of his Westport farm not producing enough to make ends meet, made
finances increasingly difficult despite Stieglitz’s ongoing assistance. Dove’s marriage
disintegrated and his father passed away in 1921, then Dove began living with his
longtime companion Helen ‘Reds” Torr. Together, they purchased and lived on a 42-foot
yawl, Mona and spent the next two two years sailing the Long Island Sound before
settling in Halesite, Long Island in 1924.
In 1921, the Phillips Memorial Art Gallery opened in Washington, D.C. dedicated solely
to modern art. It was founded by Duncan Phillips who would later join the board of
trustees of New York’s Museum of Modern Art where he served until 1935, and then as
Honorary Trustee for Life. In 1922, Phillips viewed Dove’s work for the first time and,
four years later became the first museum director to purchase the artist’s work with the
acquisition of Golden Storm (1925) and Waterfall (1925) from his solo show at Stieglitz’s
Intimate Gallery. These works remain in the Phillips Collection to this day. In many
ways, they vividly demonstrate how his years at the farm and on the water, absorbing
details of landscape, seasonal changes, ocean tides, and weather patterns, would distill
into essential abstract forms of color and line, and establish Dove’s mature aesthetic
into work that was worthy of museum representation.
With Stieglitz shepherding the arrangement, Phillips became Dove’s main patron in
1930, supporting him financially through a monthly stipend. In return, he was given first
choice of picks from future shows organized by Stieglitz. 2 This support sustained Dove
through the Depression and Phillips would ultimately purchase over 48 works for his
collection and gallery, having only met the artist once in person in spring 1936.
In 1933, Dove’s mother passed away and he and his brother, Paul were charged with
managing her debt-ridden estate and the family farm. Along with his now-wife Reds, he
reluctantly moved back to Geneva where he would remain for five years. Initially they
lived in a farmhouse on the property without electricity, but by 1937 had moved to town
into the top floor of the Dove Block, a commercial building at the center of town that had
been commissioned and built by his father. This served as both home and studio and
proved to be a particularly productive setting and intense working period for the artist.
Dove’s time in Geneva inspired a push towards greater abstraction and resulted in
some of his most celebrated works. In warmer months, he focused on smaller
watercolors some of which were adapted into larger abstract oils during the winter
months. Art historian, Jessica Murphy writes “Geneva provided him with new subject
matter for his art, including the family farm, the local barnyard animals, and nearby
lakes, as well as the city’s more industrial downtown area of warehouses and railroad
tracks … In the relative isolation of Geneva, he concentrated more than ever on themes
of interdependence between living creatures and their environment and on the purely
formal appeal of natural objects’ shapes and lines, which he emphasized to the point of
abstraction with organic shapes and unexpected color schemes”. 3 The effort paid off
because Dove was lauded in 1937 with his first and only lifetime retrospective
exhibition, at the Phillips Gallery featuring over 57 works.
1n 1938, Dove’s health deteriorated dramatically, forcing him to remain mostly house
bound and in a wheelchair. Not long after, Dove and Reds departed Geneva and moved
to the North Shore of Long Island, settling in the town of Centerport. They lived in a
former post office and general store, which they renovated in part with proceeds from
the sale of the Dove Block and portions of the family farm.
Despite his fragility and limitations caused by a heart attack and kidney disease, Dove
continued to be inspired by his natural environment and painted in all media, creating
work for five solo exhibitions in the 1940s. This work focused on an even more rigorous,
nonobjective abstraction which he called ‘pure painting’. 4
He remained in Centerport until his death in1946, as it happened, just a few months
after the passing of Alfred Stieglitz. His later work had a tremendous impact and
influence upon future generations of artists, anticipating color field painting seen in the
work of Mark Rothko (1903 - 1970). In the late 1940s, Dove’s work would also influence
the early Abstract Expressionists, including Jackson Pollock’s early work. Other noted
influences are evident in the work of Clyfford Still (1904-1980), Barnett Newman
(1905-1970), and Helen Frankenthaler (1928-2011), who were creating images
celebrating the medium of painting, it’s flatness and plasticity, all traits which resonated
in Dove’s final decade of work and secured his position as America’s leading abstract
modernist.
1 Rachael Z. DeLue, Arthur Dove - Yes, I Could Paint a Cyclone (New York: Schoelkopf Gallery, 2023), p. 18.
2 Ibid, p. 26.
3 Jessica Murphy, “Arthur Dove (1880 - 1946),” Metropolitan Museum of Art, June 2007, https://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/dove/hd_dove.htm.
4 William C. Agee, “New Directions: The Late Work, 1938 - 1946”, in Arthur Dove: A
Retrospective, Cambridge: The MIT Press, 1997, p. 133.
