About This Artwork
Stuart Davis
American, 1892-1964
Saw, 1923
Oil on canvas
94 x 55.9 cm (37 x 22 in.)
Through prior gift of William Wrigley, 1988.144
Unlike most American modernists, Stuart Davis did not visit Paris until he was well established as an artist, in 1928. However, he incorporated the avant-garde styles he saw in New York into objects like Saw, one of a series of paintings of solitary objects he produced in the early 1920s. Here, the saw floats in a Cubist composition of flat, abstract planes. Elevating mundane objects to artistic subjects appealed to modernists like Davis because it signaled a new means of working that was free of art historical associations. In this painting, Davis presented the saw as a modern icon for the 20th century.