Flat Surfaces
Brooklyn Museum photograph
Object Label
Flat Surfaces, Arthur G. Dove’s last major canvas, serves as a poignant summation of his longtime quest for the “elimination of the non-essential.” Basing the composition on the view of the pond from his Long Island home, he distilled the landscape into flat, hard-edged geometric shapes that approach pure abstraction.
Although an intimate of the photographer Alfred Stieglitz’s circle of modern artists, Dove preferred to live and work outside the city in proximity to nature. Considered the first American artist to produce purely nonrepresentational pictures (in 1910), he used form and color to express his deep spiritual feelings about the natural world.
Caption
Arthur G. Dove American, 1880–1946. Flat Surfaces, 1946. Oil on canvas, 27 x 36in. (68.6 x 91.4cm) Frame: 29 1/4 x 38 x 2 1/4 in. (74.3 x 96.5 x 5.7 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Dick S. Ramsay Fund, 55.21. © artist or artist's estate (Photo: Brooklyn Museum, 55.21_SL1.jpg)
Gallery
Not on view
Collection
Gallery
Not on view
Collection
Artist
Title
Flat Surfaces
Date
1946
Medium
Oil on canvas
Classification
Dimensions
27 x 36in. (68.6 x 91.4cm) Frame: 29 1/4 x 38 x 2 1/4 in. (74.3 x 96.5 x 5.7 cm)
Signatures
lower center
Credit Line
Dick S. Ramsay Fund
Accession Number
55.21
Rights
© artist or artist's estate
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Frequent Art Questions
What about this?
The painting you sent is "Flat Surfaces" by the American artist Arthur Dove. Dove made it in 1946, shortly before he died.Dove was a contemporary to Georgia O'Keeffe. It is interesting to compare their processes of abstraction. Like O'Keeffe, Dove often worked from the landscape around him; at this time, he was living on Long Island, New York. He simplified forms so much that the original subject often isn't obvious to us!
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