At the Dawn of a New Age: Early Twentieth-Century American Modernism

May 7, 2022–Feb 26, 2023

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Born 1887 in Chicago, IL
Died 1969 in Sarasota, FL

As a high school student in Chicago, Manierre Dawson discovered painter Arthur Wesley Dow’s influential instruction manual Composition, which taught art students not to imitate nature but to create harmonious arrangements of line, color, and hue. Even after he began studying civil engineering and started to work as an architect, Dawson continued painting, composing abstractions using boldly colored lines, grids, and parabolas that he credited to his technical training. In works such as Brown Array, angular, interlocking geometric shapes of similar hue create the sensation of movement across the canvas. After these paintings appeared in the Chicago presentation of the Armory Show—the pivotal 1913 exhibition that introduced European modernism to the United States—Dawson quit his job so that he might devote himself to his art, even buying a fruit farm in Michigan to free himself from the financial burdens of city life. At first, he successfully divided his time between art and agriculture, but, eventually, the demands of farming prevailed. His last dated painting is from 1920.

An abstract painting featuring a dynamic array of geometric shapes and fragmented forms in shades of brown, tan, and black with hints of green and white, evoking a sense of movement and chaos.

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At the Dawn of a New Age: Early Twentieth-Century American Modernism

Manierre Dawson

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Brown Array, 1912–13

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At the Dawn of a New Age: Early Twentieth-Century American Modernism

Manierre Dawson

6

Brown Array, 1912–13

Artists

Explore works from this exhibition in the Whitney's collection

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