https://mmaacollections.omeka.net/items/browse?tags=Ink&sort_field=added&sort_dir=a&output=atom2024-03-29T01:03:03-04:00Omekahttps://mmaacollections.omeka.net/items/show/245Study for History of Communications Mural]]>2020-03-19T12:42:20-04:00
Artist
Stuart Davis
1892-1964
Born in Philadelphia, PA
Title
Study for History of Communications Mural
Date
1939
Medium
Ink on paper
Dimension
14 15/16 x 34 inches
Credit Line
Purchase, Acquisition Fund
Object ID
80.08.01
Notes
Davis created four murals in the 1930s. The largest and most complex of these murals was the Communications Mural, which was privately commissioned for the 1939 World's Fair. The mural was designed for the Communications Pavilion and was later destroyed when the fair was dismantled. The original measured 44 feet high and 136 feet long. Davis' concept involved painting with white luminescent lines on a black background. The study featured here illustrates the mural in reverse, with black lines on a white background.
Davis wrote over twenty pages of theoretical notations regarding the imagery of the mural. "My purpose is to make a work of Art, made of spatial elements associated with Communications [...] to be simple and easy to remember. Its tone-element is limited to white on black." According to his notations, the range of subjects organized across the mural included speech and language, writing and printing, drawing and painting, camera and motion picture, television and the telegraph, song and music, telephone and the radio, and the phonograph.
Publications
Kammen, Michael. Gilbert Seldes and the Transformation of Culture of Criticism in the United States, 4. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 1996.