Arthur Garfield Dove was born in 1880 in
Canandaigua, NY, and was "The most radical modernist of his generation, and blazed a trail that was later picked up by the
New York School" (-Elizabeth Hutton Turner, curator, Addison Gallery of American Art, Andover, Massachusetts). Opinion aside, Dove was
the first American
abstract painter.
As a young man, Dove worked as an illustrator in
New York City. After a lengthy tour of Europe (1907-1909), in which he met many members of the American
expatriate group in
Paris, Dove began an abstract style that became a precursor of the abstract expressionist movement. Unfortunately, at the time he began creating these works, there was no cultural or artistic basis ("scene") for such a style, and it wasn't until much later that his became recognized. He would never again return to Paris. His first attempt at the abstract (which preceeded even
Wassily Kandinsky's work) was a series of six pieces, which were first shown in 1910. Dove's work, from his early carreer until his death, was heavily influenced by his deep love for nature.
Upon his return from Paris in 1909, Dove went, in his own words, "native," spending a great deal of time camping in the woods. After being refused a monthly stipend by his father, a successful brickmaker, Dove tried in 1912 to start a farm, without much success. His wife left him in 1920, and he spend the next seven years living on a boat with artist
Helen "Reds" Torr (1886-1967), which they sailed around
Long Island and the
Connecticut coast. This had am extreme influence on his style for several reasons. Because of his isolation, he was excluded from the small clique-y groupds of New York City artists, and his life in nature provided him with extremely different subject matter than anyone else at the time.
Dove's abstractions (to which he referred as "extractions"), were an attempt to reduce natural elements to their
basic essences, both physically and spiritually. He attempted to discover principal shapes and colors that would represent his subject matter to
the soul of the observer as well as to the eye- Dove wanted to do with paint what
Emerson had done to
him with words. He would have been bankrupted several times if not for the faith of New York art dealer
Alfred Stieglitz, who believed in Dove's work and encouraged him throughout his career.
Arthur Dove developed
pneumonia in 1938 while living in a one-room cottage with Torr, and was later diagnosed with a severe
kidney disorder that ravaged his body and eventually resulted in his death in 1943.
http://www.smithsonianmag.si.edu/smithsonian/issues97/nov97/dove_nov97.html
http://www.factmonster.com/ce6/people/A0816000.html
http://www.artchive.com/artchive/D/dove.html