The Cleveland Museum of Art

Collection Online as of April 26, 2024

Composition Concrete (Study for Mural)

1957–1960

Stuart Davis

(American, 1894–1964)

America, 20th century

oil on canvas

Framed: 130.5 x 72 x 9.5 cm (51 3/8 x 28 3/8 x 3 3/4 in.); Unframed: 108.6 x 50.8 cm (42 3/4 x 20 in.)

Contemporary Collection of The Cleveland Museum of Art 1964.2

Location: 226B American Modern

Did You Know?

Davis was one of the first artists to incorporate elements from advertising in his work.

Description

Davis’s dynamic abstraction is a study for a large mural he created for the H. J. Heinz Research Center in Pittsburgh. The numerals 1957—placed sideways with the last two digits playfully inverted—are visible at the lower left of the composition. Here the artist not only refers to the year he started this painting, but also wittily riffs on the famous Heinz slogan “57 Varieties.”

Davis remarked that this painting’s title evokes “concrete music,” an avant-garde composition consisting of seemingly random combinations of pre-recorded sound. With its apparently improvised shapes and colors, his canvas
visualizes this experimental concept.

1964
The artist; (The Downtown Gallery, New York, NY), January 4, 1964
1964
(The Downtown Gallery, New York, NY, December 1964, sold to the Cleveland Museum of Art)
1964-
The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH
Munro, Cynthia, "We Hitch Our Wagons: Stuart Davis and Cynthia." (interview with the artist). Mademoiselle, vol. 45, no. 4, August 1957. Reproduced: p. 266
Stuart Davis: Exhibition of Ten of the Paintings Used as Color Illustrations in "Stuart Davis" by Rudi Blesh (exhibition pamphlet). New York: The Downtown Gallery, 1960. Reproduced: cover
Twenty Seventh Biennial Exhibition of Contemporary American Painting (exhibition booklet). Washington, D.C.: The Corcoran Gallery of Art, 1961. Reproduced: cat n. 24
Cleveland Museum of Art, “Recent Acquisitions Press Release,” February 19, 1964, Cleveland Museum of Art Archives. archive.org
Henning, Edward B. "The Language of Art." CMA Bulletin 51 (November, 1964), pp. 224-225, repr. p. 225, color illus. p 209. Mentioned: p. 224; Reproduced: p. 209, 225
Kozloff, Max. "Larry Rivers, Stuart Davis and Slang Idiom." Artforum 4 (November, 1965). Reproduced: p. 24
The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1966. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1966. Reproduced: p. 203 archive.org
"Recent Accessions in the American Field." Art in America 54 (May-June, 1966). Reproduced: p. 46
The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1969. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1969. Reproduced: p. 203 archive.org
Cleveland Museum of Art. Art of the Twentieth Century in the Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland, OH: Dept. of Art History & Education, CMA, 1969. Mentioned: p. 4 archive.org
Kelder, Diane, ed. Stuart Davis. New York: Praeger Publishers, 1971. Reproduced: plate 26
Urdang, Beth. Stuart Davis: Murals. Zabriskie Gallery exhibition catalog, January 27- February 14, 1976. Mentioned: p. 4; Reproduced: n. 17
The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1978. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1978. Reproduced: p. 253 archive.org
Teilman,Herdis B. "Composition Concrete, 1957, by Stuart Davis." Carnegie Magazine (May, 1980). Mentioned: p. 9; Reproduced: p. 8
Wilkin, Karen. Stuart Davis. New York Abbeville Press Publishers, 1987. Reproduced: p. 193
CMA Handbook, 1991. Mentioned: p. 154
Sims, Lowery Stokes. Stuart Davis: American Painter. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1991. Mentioned: 142,296; Reproduced: p. 297
Rylands, Philip, ed. Stuart Davis. Milan, Electa, 1997. p. 180, 181, cat. no. 54. Mentioned: p. 180; Reproduced: p. 181, n. 54
Sims, Lowery Stokes. The Persistence of Geometry: Form, Content and Culture in the Collection of the Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland: Cleveland Museum of Art, 2006. Mentioned: p. 121; Reproduced: p. 34, n. 96
"Year in Review for 1964." CMA Bulletin 51 (December, 1964). Reproduced: p. 266, n. 156
The Persistence of Geometry: Form, Content and Culture in the Collection of the Cleveland Museum of Art. Museum of Contemporary Art Cleveland (MOCA), Cleveland, OH (June 9-August 20, 2006).
Stuart Davis. Peggy Guggenheim Collection, Palazzo Venier dei Leoni, Venice (June 3-September 28, 1997); Palazzo delle Esposizioni, Rome (October 22, 1997-January 12, 1998); Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam (February 1-May 1, 1998); National Museum of American Art, Washington, DC (May 30-September 1, 1998).
American Cities: The Artist's View. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (October 17, 1989-January 7, 1990).
Stuart Davis Memorial Exhibition, 1894-1964. National Collection of Fine Arts, Washington, DC (organizer) (May 28-July 5, 1965); The Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, IL (July 30-August 29, 1965); Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY (September 14-October 17, 1965); University of California, Los Angeles (October 31-November 28, 1965).
Year in Review (1964). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (December 8, 1964-January 31, 1965).
Mary Washington College, Fredericksburg, Virginia, Mary Washington Annual, October 1962 (as Mural--Lobby Wall).
The Butler Institute of American Art, Youngstown, Ohio, 26th Annual Mid-year Show, July 2-September 4, 1961, no. 39 as Mural Lobby.
The Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., Twenty Seventh Biennial Exhibition of Contemporary American Painting, January 14-February 26, 1961 (booklet), no. 24 as Lobby Wall.
The Downtown Gallery, New York, Group Show - 1st Floor, November 8-December 3, 1960 (checklist) as Mural-Lobby Wall.
The Downtown Gallery, New York, Stuart Davis: Exhibition of Ten of the Paintings Used as Color Illustrations in "Stuart Davis" by Rudy Blesh, May 10-June 4, 1960 (pamphlet), no. 10 as Study for Mural -- Heinz Co. Research Center.
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Source URL:

https://www.clevelandart.org/art/1964.2