{"data":{"id":"371","type":"artist","attributes":{"id":371,"topgoose_id":2430,"tms_id":371,"display_name":"Arthur Dove","sort_name":"Dove Arthur","display_date":"1880–1946","begin_date":"1880","end_date":"1946","biography":"\u003cp\u003eIn 1912 Arthur Dove exhibited a radical series of pastel drawings at \u003ca href=\"/artists/1292\"\u003eAlfred Stieglitz\u003c/a\u003e’s pioneering 291 gallery in New York, making Dove the first American artist to publicly embrace modernist abstraction. Although he had begun his career as a commercial illustrator, an extended stay in Paris between 1907 and 1909 put the artist in touch with European avant-garde developments, including the work of Paul Cézanne, Henri Matisse, and Pablo Picasso. Seeking a nonrepresentational form for his painting, he expressed his desire “to make something that is real in itself, that does not remind anyone of any other thing, and that does not have to be explained—like the letter A for instance.”\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn his works of this period, Dove\nannounced the rhythmic and resolutely\norganic formal vocabulary that would\noccupy him throughout his career.\nThe densely layered composition of\u003cem\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/em\u003e\u003ca href=\"/collection/works/161\"\u003e\u003cem\u003ePlant\nForms\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/a\u003e recalls Cubist precedents, with its abstract pattern of overlapping straight and curvilinear forms. At the same time, Dove’s aesthetic language reflected his profound connection to the American landscape. His sensory responses to the natural world are conveyed through the subtle shading of the forms as well as the use of pastel, a medium Dove had turned to the previous year, applying it to canvas rather than paper to create luminous surfaces and an immediacy of color. Calling his technique “extraction,” Dove sought to distill the inner essence of his subjects rather than analyze their outward physical form. “I would rather look at nature than to try to imitate it,” he remarked.\u003c/p\u003e","on_view":true,"artport":false,"biennial":true,"collection":true,"ulan_id":"500018046","wikidata_id":"Q709461","created_at":"2017-08-30T17:22:19.000-04:00","updated_at":"2026-03-02T07:04:40.875-05:00","links":{"artworks":"/api/artists/371/artworks","exhibitions":"/api/artists/371/exhibitions"}}}}