![Untitled [5-30-42], 1942, watercolor and ink on paper, 3 x 4 inches. Terry Dintenfass, Inc., New York.](https://img.artlogic.net/w_1800,h_1000,c_limit/exhibit-e/621d3c13082c1402023ff3a3/9277c8f0806d05b2d973cc868a5aad15.jpeg)
![Untitled [6-3-42], 1942, watercolor and ink on paper, 3 x 4 inches. Terry Dintenfass, Inc., New York.](https://img.artlogic.net/w_1800,h_1000,c_limit/exhibit-e/621d3c13082c1402023ff3a3/bde072b01727fcf61d298ef56286d9ea.jpeg)
![Untitled [6-11-42], 1942, watercolor and ink on paper, 3 x 4 inches. Terry Dintenfass, Inc., New York.](https://img.artlogic.net/w_1800,h_1000,c_limit/exhibit-e/621d3c13082c1402023ff3a3/5f64b7fbc153be5baf3e6bfdd995e6cd.jpeg)
![Untitled [5-30-42], 1942, watercolor and ink on paper, 3 x 4 inches. Terry Dintenfass, Inc., New York.](https://img.artlogic.net/w_647,h_647,c_limit/exhibit-e/621d3c13082c1402023ff3a3/9277c8f0806d05b2d973cc868a5aad15.jpeg)
![Untitled [6-3-42], 1942, watercolor and ink on paper, 3 x 4 inches. Terry Dintenfass, Inc., New York.](https://img.artlogic.net/w_647,h_647,c_limit/exhibit-e/621d3c13082c1402023ff3a3/bde072b01727fcf61d298ef56286d9ea.jpeg)
![Untitled [6-11-42], 1942, watercolor and ink on paper, 3 x 4 inches. Terry Dintenfass, Inc., New York.](https://img.artlogic.net/w_647,h_647,c_limit/exhibit-e/621d3c13082c1402023ff3a3/5f64b7fbc153be5baf3e6bfdd995e6cd.jpeg)
Arthur Dove
Sun and Moon, 1932, oil on canvas, 18 1/4 x 22 inches. Private Collection.
Arthur Dove: Sensations of Light
April 22 through May 25, 2023
Alexandre
On view at 25 East 73rd Street, New York 10021
Alexandre is pleased to present “Arthur Dove: Sensations of Light,” a major survey exhibition of America’s foremost abstract painter of the early twentieth century, Arthur Dove (1880–1946). Organized by the gallery with Debra Bricker Balken, the show is the first in over twenty-five years of Dove’s paintings and will feature over forty works—including twenty- two paintings—on loan from private and foundation collections. In 2006 the gallery organized an exhibition of Dove’s watercolors, also with Debra Bricker Balken, which travelled to the Heckscher Museum, in the community where Dove lived.
Although Dove was part of a circle of artists associated with Alfred Stieglitz, including John Marin and Georgia O’Keeffe, his work was uniquely radical and set him apart as a pioneering figure in American art. Dove’s legacy is significant for his focus on the formal elements of painting, particularly the use of color and the absence of figuration, in anticipating the rise of Abstract Expressionism in the late 1940s.
River Bottom, Silver, Ochre, Carmine, Green, c. 1923, oil and metallic paint on canvas, 24 x 18 inches. Private Collection, courtesy Agnews Gallery, London.
Arthur Dove’s body of work is exceptional for its focus on the sensation of light and color. This fascination began in 1910 after Dove’s return from a fifteen-month sojourn in France, where he produced abstract compositions that captured the movement of light and its reflection on surfaces. Dove’s paintings dispensed with the voluminous brushwork that had defined his earlier works, revealing his growing interest in capturing “the sensations of light from within and without.”
Three of Dove’s earliest abstractions from 1910-11 will be on view in the exhibition, along with other works of the period. These works, though not exhibited during his lifetime, were critically acknowledged for their extraordinary assurance and singularity. They were the outcome of a heightened intuition and abstract sensibility that stood out within American art in the first half of the twentieth century. Dove placed a premium on intuition, an intangible source that could buttress his scrutiny of nature’s vast inventory, its random rhythms, and intense meteorological dimensions. He sought to counter expectation and chart new visual territory, leading to the creation of an extraordinary body of work. Dove’s ongoing sensuality and uplift at every phase were a result of his emphasis on feeling and his conviction that his emotional life was a viable origin for painting. Important paintings from all periods in Dove’s career are included.
The exhibition is organized to celebrate Balken’s recently published Arthur Dove: A Catalogue Raisonné of Paintings and Things, distributed by Yale University Press in 2021. The catalogue raisonné—a key resource for this exhibition—surveys the artist’s known paintings and assemblages, or “things,” alongside an incisive essay on his work’s critical reception, an illustrated chronology, and an extensive bibliography and exhibition history. Balken was the lead curator of the most recent Dove retrospective co-organized by the Addison Gallery of American Art and The Phillips Collection, which traveled to the Whitney Museum of American Art in 1998. On the occasion of this exhibition, Balken has contributed ten new short essays on various aspects of Dove’s career, which will be the basis for an exhibition catalogue published by the gallery.
Abstraction No. 6, 1910-11, oil on panel, 8 3/8 x 10 1/2 inches. Private Collection.
“Arthur Dove: Sensations of Light” is presented with the support of the artist’s estate and includes works on loan from the Dove family’s collection. The exhibition will be on view from April 22 through May 25, 2023, at the gallery’s Uptown location at 25 East 73rd Street.
Please contact the gallery at inquiries@alexandregallery.com for information about public programming during the exhibition.
Arthur Dove: Watercolors, Alexandre's exhibition from 2006.
Exhibition Videos:
Debra Bricker Balken speaks on the Dove CATALOGUE RAISONNÉ
Debra Bricker Balken speaks on Arthur Dove: Sensations of Light
Barbara Haskell speaks on Dove to the Whitney Museum American Fellows
Arthur Dove: A Catalogue Raisonné of Paintings and Things by Debra Bricker Balken
Arthur Dove: A Catalogue Raisonné of Paintings and Things
By Debra Bricker Balken (Author) and Jessie Sentivan (Contributor)
Yale University Press, 2021
$125
Available from the gallery and on the gallery website.
Arthur Dove (1880–1946) was a major American modernist of the early 20th century. While he is tied to a circle of artists, including John Marin and Georgia O’Keeffe, who were associated with the preeminent photographer and art dealer Alfred Stieglitz, Dove’s work is uniquely radical, anticipating the rise of abstract expressionism in the late 1940s. This catalogue raisonné surveys the artist’s known paintings and assemblages, or “things,” alongside an incisive essay on his work’s critical reception, an illustrated chronology, and an extensive bibliography and exhibition history. Additional essays emphasize monumental works such as Fields of Grain as Seen from Train (1931), the magisterial Sunrise series (1936), and High Noon (1944), a culmination of his ongoing preoccupation with abstracting the ephemeral in nature. Previously unpublished materials and images advance the known corpus of Dove’s work while ensuring that this is the most definitive publication on the artist to date. Elegantly and inventively designed, it is also the first book on the artist to illustrate all his extant paintings in color.
Hardbound with a cloth cover.
"An expanded view of ‘one of America’s most far-reaching, idiosyncratic artists.’ . . . In addition to a chronology, exhibition history, and bibliography, the book features an introductory essay [that] charts the artist’s reception through the writers who championed or disparaged him . . . But the true revelation here lies in the full-color illustrations, which track the painter through his marvels and misfires alike.”
—Kate Sutton, Bookforum
"Balken’s volume, gorgeously printed and illustrated in full color by Yale University Press . . . promises to be an essential resource for Dove scholars.”
—Andrew L. Shea, The New Criterion
Landscape (Cagnes-sur-Mer), 1908-09, oil on canvas, 18 1/4 x 21 1/2 inches. Private Collection.
Abstraction No. 1, 1910-11, oil on panel, 8 3/4 x 10 1/2 inches. Private Collection.
Abstraction No. 4, 1910-11, oil on panel, 8 3/8 x 10 1/2 inches. Private Collection.
Abstraction No. 6, 1910-11, oil on panel, 8 3/8 x 10 1/2 inches. Private Collection.
Abstraction, 1914-17, oil on canvas, 18 x 22 inches. Private Collection.
Abstraction Untitled, c. 1917-20, charcoal on paper, 20 1/2 x 17 1/2 inches. Collection of Michael and Juliet Rubenstein. Promised gift to The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
River Bottom, Silver, Ochre, Carmine, Green, c. 1923, oil and metallic paint on canvas, 24 x 18 inches. Private Collection, courtesy Agnews Gallery, London.
Penetration, 1924, oil on panel, 22 x 18 1/8 inches. The Jan T. and Marica Vilcek Collection. Promised gift to The Vilcek Foundation.
Silver Log, 1928, oil on canvas, 30 x 18 inches. Private Collection.
Sun on the Water, 1929, oil, metallic paint and charcoal on paper mounted on bristol board, 15 x 19 1/2 inches. Private Collection.
Colored Drawing, Canvas, 1929, oil on canvas, 18 x 22 inches. The Vilcek Foundation.
Untitled, c. 1929, oil on metal, 28 x 20 inches. The Jan T. and Marica Vilcek Collection. Promised gift to The Vilcek Foundation.
Snow on Ice, Huntington Harbor, 1930, oil on canvas, 18 x 21 inches. Private Collection.
Coal Carrier II, 1930, oil on canvas, 10 x 20 inches. Private Collection.
Cinder Barge and Derrick, 1931, oil on canvas, 22 x 30 inches. Private Collection.
Study for Cinder Barge and Derrick, 1931, charcoal, graphite and watercolor on paper, 5 x 7 inches. Private Collection.
Town Scraper, 1933, oil on canvas, 18 x 24 inches. Private Collection.
Freight Car, 1937, oil on canvas, 20 x 28 inches. Private Collection.
Dawn I, 1932, oil on canvas, 22 x 22 inches. Private Collection.
Sun and Moon, 1932, oil on canvas, 18 1/4 x 22 inches. Private Collection.
Sunday, 1932, oil on Masonite, 15 x 19 1/2 inches. Private Collection.
Formation II, 1942, oil on canvas, 24 x 32 inches. Private Collection.
Polygons and Textures, 1944 oil on canvas, 24 x 32 inches. Private Collection.
Green and Brown, 1945, oil on canvas, 18 x 24 inches. Private Collection.
Untitled (Coal Carrier), 1930, gouache on wove paper, 3 3/4 x 4 1/2 inches. Terry Dintenfass, Inc., New York.
Moon, 1935, watercolor on paper, 7 x 5 inches. Private Collection.
Willow Tree, 1938, watercolor on paper, 4 7/8 x 6 7/8 inches. Private Collection.
Tempera, 1938, tempera on board, 5 x 7 inches. Private Collection.
Freight Car II, 1938, watercolor and ink on paper, 5 x 7 inches. Private Collection.
Untitled #10, 1941, watercolor and ink on paper, 5 x 7 inches. Private Collection.
Untitled #11, c. 1941, watercolor and ink on paper, 5 x 7 inches. Private Collection.
Sunrise I (Set of Three), c. 1941, graphite, ink and watercolor on paper, 4 x 5 1/2 inches. Private Collection.
Sunrise II (Set of Three), c. 1941, graphite, ink and watercolor on paper, 4 x 5 1/2 inches. Private Collection.
Sunrise III (Set of Three), c. 1941, graphite, ink and watercolor on paper, 4 x 5 1/2 inches. Private Collection.
Untitled [5-30-42], 1942, watercolor and ink on paper, 3 x 4 inches. Terry Dintenfass, Inc., New York.
Untitled [6-3-42], 1942, watercolor and ink on paper, 3 x 4 inches. Terry Dintenfass, Inc., New York.
Untitled [6-11-42], 1942, watercolor and ink on paper, 3 x 4 inches. Terry Dintenfass, Inc., New York.
Partly Cloudy, 1941, watercolor and pencil on paper, 5 1/2 x 4 inches. Private Collection.
Untitled, c. 1942, gouache on card, 3 x 4 inches. Terry Dintenfass, Inc., New York.
Untitled (Sea and Sand), 1943 mixed media, 3 x 4 inches. Terry Dintenfass, Inc., New York.
