Meeting (The Three Graces) by Manierre Dawson in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, November 2009

Artist: Manierre Dawson (American, 1887-1969)

Title: Meeting (The Three Graces)

Date: 1912

Medium: Oil on canvas

Dimensions: 58 1/8 x 48 in. (147.6 x 121.9 cm)

Classification: Paintings

Credit Line: Gift of Myra Bairstow and Lewis J. Obi, M.D., 2007

Accession Number: 2007.331

Rights and Reproduction: © ObiArts, Inc.


Description:

In 1910 the young Chicago artist spent six months traveling throughout England, France, Germany, Switzerland, and Italy, where he visited museums, collectors, and archeological sites. Following this sojourn, he created a series of modernist works in 1911-12 based on images from classical art and Old Master paintings. Here, his reinterpretation of a first-century Pompeian fresco transformed mythological maidens into emblems of Cubo-Futurist modernity. Although Dawson did not receive the same recognition during his lifetime as some of his American contemporaries in the Stieglitz and Arensberg circles, his avant-garde work was in the forefront of American modernism at the time.

Text from: www.metmuseum.org/Works_of_Art/collection_database/modern...