Stuart Davis
Premiere1957

Not on view

Abstract painting with overlapping angled rectangles in red, green, black, blue, and white on a marigold orange ground, filled with bold text fragments including "BAG," "LARGE," "NEW," "FREE," "JUICE," and "CAT"

Artist or Maker: Stuart Davis
United States, Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, active New York City and France, Paris, 1892-1964
Title: Premiere
Place Made: United States
Date Made: 1957
Medium: Oil on canvas
Dimensions: 58 × 50 in. (147.32 × 127 cm)
Credit Line: Museum Purchase, Art Museum Council Fund
Accession Number: M.60.4
Classification: Paintings
Collecting Area: Modern Art
Curatorial Notes: Premiere’s colorful quadrants combine geometric abstraction and the graphic appeal of consumer goods in anticipation of the Pop art of the 1960s. In response to a commission by Fortune magazine, which invited several artists to make still life paintings of ordinary products, Stuart Davis purchased common items from the supermarket, such as coffee, juice, and Brillo cleaning pads, and arranged them on the floor of his studio. Drawings of the process—also in LACMA’s collection— reveal the artist’s exacting approach to finding the right rhythm of color and sensory impact of the scene. In the end, Davis highlighted simple shapes and contrasting colors with bold terms such as “large,” “free,” and “new.” These are the hyperboles of advertising, but they also comment on the vocabulary of Abstract Expressionism, which was becoming cliché and giving way to Pop’s irony and humor.

Wall label, 2021.
Selected Bibliography: Hopkins, Henry T., ed. Illustrated Handbook of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. West Germany: Bruder Hartmann, 1965.
Bridges, Bill and Lunsford, Ronald F. The Longwood Guide to Writing. New York: Pearson Education, 2002.
Stuart Davis: Major Late Paintings. New York: Salander-O'Reilly Galleries, 2002.
Greenberg, Jan. Heart to Heart, New Poems Inspired by Twentieth-Century American Art. New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 2001.
LACMA: Obras Maestras 1750-1950: Pintura Estadounidense Del Museo De Arte Del Condado De Los Angeles. Mexico, D.F.: Museo Nacional de Arte, 2006.
Hunter, Sam. Art Since 1950, American and International. Seattle: Seattle World's Fair, 1962.
Selleck, Jack. Line. Worcester, MA: Davis Publications, 1974.
Green, Dominic. "Music of the Eye." Art & Antiques 39, no.6 (2016): 64-71.
Boyajian, Ani; Rutkoski, Mark. Stuart Davis: A Catalogue Raisonné. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2007.
Cooper, Harry, and Barbara Haskell. Stuart Davis: In Full Swing. Washington, D.C.: National Gallery of Art, 2016.
Sims, Lowery Stokes. Stuart Davis: American Painter. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1991.
Copyright: © Estate of Stuart Davis/Licensed by VAGA at Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY

Related Unframed

Stuart Davis
Premiere1957

Not on view

Artist or Maker: Stuart Davis
United States, Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, active New York City and France, Paris, 1892-1964
Title: Premiere
Place Made: United States
Date Made: 1957
Medium: Oil on canvas
Dimensions: 58 × 50 in. (147.32 × 127 cm)
Credit Line: Museum Purchase, Art Museum Council Fund
Accession Number: M.60.4
Classification: Paintings
Collecting Area: Modern Art
Curatorial Notes: Premiere’s colorful quadrants combine geometric abstraction and the graphic appeal of consumer goods in anticipation of the Pop art of the 1960s. In response to a commission by Fortune magazine, which invited several artists to make still life paintings of ordinary products, Stuart Davis purchased common items from the supermarket, such as coffee, juice, and Brillo cleaning pads, and arranged them on the floor of his studio. Drawings of the process—also in LACMA’s collection— reveal the artist’s exacting approach to finding the right rhythm of color and sensory impact of the scene. In the end, Davis highlighted simple shapes and contrasting colors with bold terms such as “large,” “free,” and “new.” These are the hyperboles of advertising, but they also comment on the vocabulary of Abstract Expressionism, which was becoming cliché and giving way to Pop’s irony and humor.

Wall label, 2021.
Selected Bibliography: Hopkins, Henry T., ed. Illustrated Handbook of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. West Germany: Bruder Hartmann, 1965.
Bridges, Bill and Lunsford, Ronald F. The Longwood Guide to Writing. New York: Pearson Education, 2002.
Stuart Davis: Major Late Paintings. New York: Salander-O'Reilly Galleries, 2002.
Greenberg, Jan. Heart to Heart, New Poems Inspired by Twentieth-Century American Art. New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 2001.
LACMA: Obras Maestras 1750-1950: Pintura Estadounidense Del Museo De Arte Del Condado De Los Angeles. Mexico, D.F.: Museo Nacional de Arte, 2006.
Hunter, Sam. Art Since 1950, American and International. Seattle: Seattle World's Fair, 1962.
Selleck, Jack. Line. Worcester, MA: Davis Publications, 1974.
Green, Dominic. "Music of the Eye." Art & Antiques 39, no.6 (2016): 64-71.
Boyajian, Ani; Rutkoski, Mark. Stuart Davis: A Catalogue Raisonné. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2007.
Cooper, Harry, and Barbara Haskell. Stuart Davis: In Full Swing. Washington, D.C.: National Gallery of Art, 2016.
Sims, Lowery Stokes. Stuart Davis: American Painter. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1991.
Copyright: © Estate of Stuart Davis/Licensed by VAGA at Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY