Stuart Davis, Première, 1957

Narrator: In this painting, Stuart Davis created an off-kilter checkerboard inside a sunny yellow border. Using just a handful of intense colors, he combined bold fonts with all kinds of geometric and curvy shapes. The composition is dynamic, bouncing our eyes this way and that. 

In 1957, a magazine hired Davis to respond to the packages that products were sold in. He went to the store, bought a big bag of groceries, and began painting. He made an interesting choice. He didn’t paint the objects themselves. Instead he pictured their names in bright, contrasting colors with bold lettering. The painting doesn't actually make a sound, but it becomes almost like the voice of a radio or television advertisement, inviting us to buy certain things. This is one of Davis’s later paintings, and it’s the last stop on our tour. But Davis worked until the end of his life, and he kept making paintings of the world around him. If he were still working today, what kinds of exciting new things do you think he'd be painting? Thanks for joining me. Enjoy your visit!