Broadway Rhythm

STUART DAVIS, 1892-1964

Throughout his life, Davis was an articulate and outspoken art theorist: he wrote over ten thousand manuscript pages. (5) Like his European counterpart, Piet Mondrian, Davis was excited and inspired by the energy of jazz music. As Gail Levin notes, "Rhythm is created [in Davis's paintings] by the variety of words and shapes overlapping in transparent layers. This is the rhythm of the city [New York] where Davis first enjoyed the jazz music that he loved. Jazz is reflected in Davis's painting" (6)

His paintings effectively form the visual equivalent to the spirit of improvisation embodied in jazz. They are composed of energetically arranged geometric elements interspersed with simplified representational forms, structured into a hard-edged, cubistic collage.

5. Lewis Kachur, "The Language of Stuart Davis: Writing/Drawing," Karen Wilkin and Lewis Kachur, The Drawings of Stuart Davis: The Amazing Continuity (New York: The American Federation of Arts and Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 1992), 30. 6. Gail Levin, The Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection of Twentieth Century American Painting (London: Sotheby's Publications by Philip Wilson Publishers, Ltd., 1987), 82. staff, Columbus Museum