The Mellow Pad
Stuart Davis
American Art
On View:
The starting point for this lively patterned abstraction was an earlier canvas by Stuart Davis entitled House and Street, 1931. Treating each subsequent version as a riff on a jazz theme, Davis moved further and further away from his original composition to establish independent, rhythmic color patterns that retained only a few direct visual cues to the original composition. Davis theorized that abstract compositions could communicate to the viewer something of the subject from which they were derived. This composition embodies the “mellow pad”—jazz lingo for the “cool” place to be. Jazz rhythms were a potent inspiration for Davis, and their presence added a distinctly American component to his abstractions.
MEDIUM
Oil on canvas
DATES
1945–1951
DIMENSIONS
26 1/4 x 42 1/8 in. (66.7 x 107 cm)
frame: 32 1/2 × 49 1/2 × 3 11/16 in. (82.6 × 125.7 × 9.4 cm) (show scale)
SIGNATURE
Signed lower right: "Stuart Davis"
INSCRIPTIONS
Signed, dated, and inscribed on discarded original stretcher verso: "THE MELLOW PAD STUART DAVIS 1945-1950-1"
COLLECTIONS
American Art
ACCESSION NUMBER
1992.11.6
CREDIT LINE
Bequest of Edith and Milton Lowenthal
MUSEUM LOCATION
This item is not on view
CAPTION
Stuart Davis (American, 1892–1964). The Mellow Pad, 1945–1951. Oil on canvas, 26 1/4 x 42 1/8 in. (66.7 x 107 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Bequest of Edith and Milton Lowenthal, 1992.11.6 (Photo: Brooklyn Museum, 1992.11.6_PS9.jpg)
IMAGE
overall, 1992.11.6_PS9.jpg. Brooklyn Museum photograph, 2016
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