Heckscher Museum Shows Survey of Arthur Dove Watercolors

Written by Peter Carleton Monday, 29 November 2010 21:13

Huntington, New York – The Heckscher Museum of Art will present an important exhibition of watercolors by Arthur Dove from July 11 through September 3, 2006.  Organized by the Alexandre Gallery, located at 41 East 57^th Street in Manhattan, in association with the Heckscher Museum of Art, “Arthur Dove Watercolors” offers a comprehensive survey of the best examples of the artist’s watercolors from 1930 through the mid-1940s, with particular emphasis on his works from the mid-1930s through the early 1940s.

Long regarded as a pioneer of American Modernism, Dove first explored the medium of watercolor on Long Island – down New York Avenue in Halesite – where he lived for nine years with his life companion and second wife, the artist Helen Torr. 

Although Dove’s preliminary efforts with watercolors date back as early as 1927 or 1928, the medium became a regular part of his painting process around 1930, when he began including his watercolors in annual exhibitions at Alfred Stieglitz’s gallery, An American Place.  Works created in Halesite include the Heckscher Museum’s Boat from 1932 an image that may actually represent Dove’s own sailboat, the Mona, as well as a splendid view of the sun shining over Huntington Harbor titled Sun Drawing Water.

Dove returned to his hometown of Geneva, New York in 1933, where he began exploring the rural upstate terrain in the medium of watercolor – painting barns and fields on the family property.  As was Dove’s practice, these frequently served as the basis for larger oils, the images enlarged to canvas size with the assistance of a pantograph or magic lantern.  As the first expression of the painter’s creative impulse, the watercolors have an immediacy and freshness that remain compelling today.

As prolific as Dove was in Geneva, it was not until his relocation with Torr to Centerport, New York – to the small one-room cottage now owned by the Heckscher Museum of Art – that he entered into a final, tremendously productive phase of exploration of the watercolor medium.  Taken ill almost immediately upon moving back to Long Island in April 1938, Dove remained a semi-invalid for the remainder of his life.  Periodically incapacitated for extended times, he was often unable to paint in oils – instead creating a significant body of more than 300 small watercolors.  Often inspired by the views out his window, across Titus Mill Pond, or down toward Camp Alvernia, Dove’s last body of work, even as it approaches total abstraction, relates closely to the artist’s physical surroundings.

Several watercolors from the Heckscher Museum’s renowned Permanent Collection are included in this exhibition, as are archival materials from the collections of the Newsday Center for Dove/Torr Studies – including the artist’s own paintbrushes and paints, his paint box, and Max Doerner’s Materials of the Artist, a book that served as Dove’s primary resource as he experimented endlessly with his painting mediums.  Arthur Dove Watercolors” is accompanied by an illustrated catalogue.

The Heckscher Museum of Art is located in Huntington, New York on Long Island’s north shore, or “Gold Coast.”  The Museum was founded in 1920 by August Heckscher, an industrialist.  The Museum’s collection, built around a core group of exceptional works donated by August Heckscher, is devoted to 19th and 20th century European and American art.

Visit online at www.heckscher.org