Preston Dickinson was a modernist and is most often identified with precisionist images of New York. His subject matter and style, however, were much more eclectic and varied. From 1906 to 1910 he studied at the Art Students League under WILLIAM M. CHASE and others, deriving from Chase a dark, impressionist style. An extended period of study in Paris from 1910 or early 1911 to 1914 exposed him to cubism, fauvism, and nonWestern art, especially Japanese prints.

Upon his return to New York Dickinson’s modernist paintings attracted the attention of the progressive dealer Charles Daniel. Fascinated by New York’s skyscrapers and bridges, in particular the Harlem Bridge, Dickinson began in the late 1910s to paint urban scenes. At first he used a flat, somewhat decorative planar style, which was transformed into his mature precisionist style during the next decade. In 1918 he expanded his imagery to include industrial forms such as factories and grain elevators. He also often drew and painted still-life compositions. Although he participated in exhibitions of the more avantgarde artists, Dickinson was a loner. He traveled extensively and while in Spain with fellow artist Oronzo Gasparo (born 1903) died suddenly of pneumonia.

BIBLIOGRAPHY
Index 20th Cent. Artists 3 (January 1936): 217-18; 3 (August-September 1936): i; reprint, pp. 510-11, 525 § Dictionary of American Biography, s.v. "Dickinson, Preston," with bibliography § Lincoln, University of Nebraska, Sheldon Memorial Art Gallery, and others, Preston Dickinson, 1889-1930, exh. cat., 1979-80, text by Ruth Cloudman, bibliography § Richard Lee Rubenfeld, "Preston Dickinson: An American Modernist, with a Catalogue of Selected Works," Ph.D. diss., Ohio State University, 1985, with bibliography, list of exhibitions.