Ornamental Elements

Recently, the Wall Street Journal’s Art Review featured a mural by Stuart Davis. “Swing Landscape”, one of a series of murals commissioned by the WPA, features the docks, houses and landscapes of Gloucester, Mass. “At some 7 by 14 feet, it explodes at us. The art historian Meyer Schapiro likened it to a “brass band.” It immediately established Davis as one of the most powerful of modern colorists.”

Stuart is considered “one of the century’s most accomplished muralists. And “Swing Landscape” (1938) is surely one of the greatest paintings of modern American art, a glorious summation of all Davis had been and was still to be.”