biography
| sex:
| male
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| lived:
| (1894–1964)
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| biography:
| Painter, born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA. The son of artist parents, he grew up knowing some original members of the Ashcan School. When his father, an art editor, moved to New Jersey, he left school at age 16 to study painting with Robert Henri in New York. He first painted everyday life under the influence of the Ashcan School, but after exhibiting five watercolours in the Armory Show of 1913, he turned to more modern styles, first imitating the French Fauvists and then to Cubism. Eventually he developed his own distinctive style based on his theory of ‘colour-space logic’ using bold colours and flat, often geometric forms, as in Lucky Strike (1921), to capture every possible aspect of the American scene. He loved the early styles of jazz, and remained influenced by African-American music. Although he spent two years in Paris (1928–30) and often visited the Massachusetts coast, he spent most of his career in New York, and during the late 1930s produced a remarkable series of mural paintings, including ‘Swing Landscape’ (1938). Eventually recognized as a fore-runner of Pop Art, his work continued to increase in reputation after his death. |
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