Arthur Dove

Arthur Garfield Dove ( born August 2, 1880 in Canandaigua, New York, † November 23, 1946 in Huntington, New York) was an American painter. Dove was one of the first abstract painting American artists. He painted similar to Wassily Kandinsky in 1911/12 his first emanating from landscape and natural forms abstracting images.

Life and work

Dove was born into a wealthy family. His parents, William George and Anna Elizabeth, were of English descent. The father was a political activist and successful businessman who owned a brickyard and had estates in the city.

As a boy, Arthur Dove was interested in playing the piano, painting lessons and got played baseball in high school. The neighbor, a recreational painter, made the boys acquainted with the landscape and nature painting.

Dove studied at Cornell University, where he drew attention to himself by skilful illustrations for the yearbook of the University. After graduation, he began working as a commercial illustrator in New York City. 1907 attracted Dove and his first wife to Paris where he a group of experimental American artists joined. The budding artists focused on new styles of painting and was particularly inspired by the Fauve and Henri Matisse. 1908 and 1909, he exhibited his works in the Salon d'Automne. With the clear awareness to work in the future as an artist, he returned to New York. Dissatisfied with the work as a commercial artist, he moved from New York to the countryside to work as farmers and fishermen and to devote himself to painting.

In 1909 he met Alfred Stieglitz, who befriended him and invited him to exhibit in his new gallery 291. 1910 Dove showed his works in the collective exhibition Young American Painters in Stieglitz's gallery. In 1912 Doves first solo exhibition at Stieglitz. Alfred Stieglitz had a certain influence on Dove's identity as an artist. Both had the belief in common that art should not be based on materialism and traditions, but rather have to embody modern spiritual values ​​. Stieglitz, the abstractions of Kandinsky were already known, Dove led them also to experiment with abstract shapes. In the exhibition of 1912 Dove showed a series of pastel works titled Ten Commandments ( The Ten Commandments ), the first non-figurative painting of an American artist. Dove soon became the leading painter of a new progressive American art. From 1912 to 1946 Dove showed regularly works in Stieglitz's galleries 291, Intimate Gallery and An American Place.