Silver Tanks

Arts of the Americas

1929

Arthur Dove (American, 1880–1946)

In Silver Tanks, Arthur Dove juxtaposed contemporary manmade elements with the timeless forces of nature: large industrial tanks, which the artist rendered in metallic paint, are contrasted with a massive, glowing moon. By depicting only an abstracted section of the tanks, Dove accentuated their vertical thrust and downplayed their function. The moon, a shimmering blue circle, is enlarged and surrounded with a dynamic aura. Both moon and tanks are seen in close proximity, making the moon appear equal to the tanks. In doing so, Dove did not unabashedly celebrate the human power implied by such industrial structures. Instead, he presented them as transformed by nature’s strength.

Status: Currently Off View
Department: Arts of the Americas

Artist: Arthur Dove
Title: Silver Tanks
Place: United States (Artist's nationality:)
Date Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.: 1929
Medium: Oil and metallic paint on canvas, mounted on panel
Inscriptions: signed l.r.: "Dove"
Dimensions: 54.6 × 77.5 cm (21 1/2 × 30 1/2 in.)
Credit Line: Gift of Leo S. Guthman
Reference Number: 1996.793

Ann Lee Morgan, Arthur Dove: Life and Work with Catalogue Raisonné (Associated University Press, 1984), 185.
Judith A. Barter, et al., American Modernism at the Art Institute of Chicago, From World War I to 1955 (Chicago: Art Institute of Chicago, 2009), cat. 77. 66.
Yang Zhigang, ed., Pathways to Modernism: American Art, 1865–1945, exh. cat. (Shanghai: Shanghai Book and Painting Press, 2018), cat. 52.

New York, An American Place, Arthur Dove, 1930, cat. 7.
Brooklyn Museum of Art, Youth and Beauty: Art of the American Twenties, Oct. 28, 2011–Jan. 22, 2012; Dallas Museum of Art, Feb. 24–May 27, 2012; Cleveland Museum of Art, July 1–Sept. 16, 2012. New York, An American Place, Arthur Dove, 1930, cat. 7.
Brooklyn Museum of Art, Youth and Beauty: Art of the American Twenties, Oct. 28, 2011–Jan. 22, 2012; Dallas Museum of Art, Feb. 24–May 27, 2012; Cleveland Museum of Art, July 1–Sept. 16, 2012.
Shanghai Museum, Pathways to Modernism: American Art, 1865–1945, Sept. 28, 2018–Jan. 6, 2019, cat. 52.

Downtown Gallery, New York. Leo Guthman, Chicago; given by him to the Art Institute of Chicago, 1996.

Morgan 30.15

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Date Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.

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