In this painting, Stuart Davis presented the saw as a modern icon for the 20th century. It is one of a series of paintings of solitary objects he produced in the 1920s. Here the tool floats in a Cubist composition of flat, abstract planes. The elevation of 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.
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.
Lewis Kachur, “Stuart Davis,” Arts Magazine 55, 3 (November 1980) p. 2.
Hilton Kramer, “An American Cubist,” Art & Antiques (January 1988) p. 94.
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. 42.
Santa Fe, Museum of New Mexico, Fiesta Exhibition, Sept. 3–17, 1923.
New York, Borgenicht Gallery, Stuart Davis, Still Life paintings, 1922/24, Sept. 27–Oct. 23, 1980.
New York, Salander O’Reilly Galleries, Selections: Stuart davis Exhibition, Oct. 3–25, 1986, checklist, no. 8.
New York, Salander O’Reilly Galleries, Stuart Davis: The Breakthrough Years, Nov. 4–Dec. 26, 1987, cat. 21, as The Saw.
Metropolitan Museum of Art, Stuart Davis, American Painter, Nov. 23, 1991–Feb. 16, 1992; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Mar. 26–June 7, 1992, cat. 51, as The Saw.
The artist; estate of the artist [Salander-O’Reilly Galleries, New York]; sold to the Art Institute of Chicago, 1988.
Davis 1485
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