Photograph by Ed Pollard, Hasselblad H4D50MS - 2011.

Matches

Artist Stuart Davis (American, 1894-1964)

CultureAmerican

Date1927

MediumOil on canvas

Dimensions26 x 20 in. (66 x 50.8 cm)
Overall, Frame: 34 3/4 × 28 3/4 × 2 3/4 in. (88.3 × 73 × 7 cm)

InscribedSigned upper left corner: Stuart Davis

Credit LineBequest of Walter P. Chrysler, Jr.

Object number89.48

Collections

American Art before 1945

On View

Chrysler Museum of Art, Gallery 222

Label TextStuart Davis American, 1894–1964 Matches, 1927 Oil on canvas The inventive American modernist Stuart Davis created a series of abstract still lifes in the 1920s loosely based on the Cubist principles of Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque. As seen in Matches, he used geometric essentials—tightly compacted planes and flattened shapes—to give the impression of three-dimensional volumes. Look at how the orange planes seemingly expand into a boxlike form and then collapse back into two dimensions. While the painting’s title may leave you looking for matchbooks, Davis insisted that his real subject was the optical pleasure of abstraction itself. As he said, “The subject…is an invented series of planes which are interesting to the artist.” Bequest of Walter P. Chrysler, Jr. 89.48 ProvenanceThe artist; Mr. and Mrs. Irving Chosak, Calif., ca. 1928-1932; [Jefferson Gallery, Los Angeles, Calif., 1969]; [Kennedy Galleries, New York]; [Coe Kerr Gallery, New York]; [Andrew Crispo Gallery, New York, 1973]; Walter P. Chrysler, Jr., 1973; Bequest of Walter P. Chrysler, Jr. to the Chrysler Museum of Art, 1989. Exhibition HistoryValentine Gallery, New York, N.Y., April 1928. (Exhibited as _Matches No. 2_, exh. cat. no. 3) "The Pioneers of American Abstraction, Bleumer, Davis, Demuth, Dove, Marin, O'Keefe, Sheeler, Stella, Weber," Andrew Crispo Gallery, New York, N.Y., October 17 - November 17, 1973. "Three Hundred Years of American Art in the Chrysler Museum," Chrysler Museum at Norfolk, Va., March 1 - July 4, 1976. "Treasures from The Chrysler Museum at Norfolk and Walter P. Chrysler, Jr.," Tennessee Fine Arts Center at Cheekwood, Nashville, Tenn., June 12 - September 5, 1977, no. 57. "Painters of the Humble Truth: American Still Life Painting," Philbrook Art Center, Tulsa, Okla., September 27 - November 8, 1981; The Oakland Museum, Calif., December 8, 1981 - January 24, 1982; The Baltimore Museum of Art, Md., March 2 - April 25, 1982; The National Academy of Design, New York, N.Y., May 18 - July 4, 1982. "Stuart Davis, American Painter," The Metropolitan Museum of Art, N.Y., November 18, 1991 - February 16, 1992; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Calif., March 24 - June 7, 1992. "Stuart Davis," Peggy Guggenheim Collection, Venice, Italy, June 7 - October 5, 1997; Palazzo delle Esposizioni, Rome, Italy, October 22, 1997 - January 12, 1998; Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, Netherlands, February 1 - April 19, 1998; National Museum of American Art, Washington, D.C., May 22 - September 7, 1998. "Art in America: 300 Years of Innovation," (Organized by the Guggenheim Museum, New York) National Art Museum of China, Beijing, February 10 - April 5, 2007;; Shanghai Museum, jointly with the Museum of Contemporary Art, Shanghai, China, April 30 - June 30, 2007; Museo Guggenheim, Bilbao, Spain, September - December 2007. "Collection Conversations: Fractured Lens: Picasso, Braque, and Cubism’s Influence," Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk, VA, October 14, 2014 - February 22, 2015. "Stuart Davis: In Full Swing," National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, November 20, 2016 - March 5, 2017; deYoung Memorial Museum, San Francisco, April 1 - August 6, 2017; Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, September 16, 2017 - January 8, 2018.Published ReferencesEdward Alden Jewell, "Davis Tames a Shrew," _The New York Times_ (April 19, 1928), section 10, 18, as _Matches No. 2_. _Pioneers of American Abstraction_, exh. cat., Andrew Crispo Gallery, New York, N.Y., 1973, no. 21. Dennis R. Anderson, "New Paintings by Kuhn, Frieseke, Davis, Sheeler, and O'Keefe," _Chrysler Museum Bulletin_ 3, no. 7 (July 1974): cover. Dennis R. Anderson, _Three Hundred Years of American Art in the Chrysler Museum_, exh. cat., Norfolk, Va., 1975, 183, 189. Eric M. Zafran and Mario Amaya, _Treasures from the Chrysler Museum at Norfolk and Walter P. Chrysler, Jr._, exh. cat., Tennessee Fine Arts Center at Cheekwood, Nashville, Tenn., 1977, no. 57. John R. Lane, _Stuart Davis: Art and Art Theory_, exh. cat., Brooklyn Museum, New York, N.Y., 1978, 103, 105. ISBN: 0872730670 Patterson Sims, _Stuart Davis: A Concentration of Works from the Permanent Collection of the Whitney Museum of American Art_, exh. cat., Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, N.Y., 1980, 19. William H. Gerdts, _Painters of the Humble Truth: Masterpieces of American Still Life, 1801-1939_ exh. cat., Philbrook Art Center, Tulsa, Okla., 1981, 254, 256, fig. 11.3. Theodore E. Stebbins, Jr., and Carol Troyen, _The Lane Collection: 20th-Century Paintings in the American Tradition_, exh. cat., Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Mass., 1983, 38. Karen Wilkin, _Stuart Davis_, (New York: Cross River Press, 1987), 103. Lowery Stokes Sims, _Stuart Davis: American Painter_, exh. cat., Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, N.Y., 1991, 103, 106, 176, 182-183, 233, 282, 292; no. 64. William Agee, "Jefferson Market,"_American Paintings, Drawings and Sculpture_, auction cat., New York, Sotheby's (March 11, 1992): under no. 96. Patricia Hills, _Stuart Davis_ (New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1996), 76, 77, 78, 150, no. 45. Philip Rylands, curator, and essay by Lewis Kachur, "Stuart Davis's Word-Pictures," _Stuart Davis_, exh. cat., Peggy Guggenheim Collection, Venice, Italy, 1997, 35, 112, cat. 20. Martha N. Hagood and Jefferson C. Harrison, _American Art at the Chrysler Museum: Selected Paintings, Sculpture, and Drawings_ (Norfolk, Va.: Chrysler Museum of Art, 2005), 170-171, no. 106. Edited by Susan Davidson, _Art in America: 300 Years of Innovation_ exh.cat., National Art Museum of China, Beijing, China, 2007, 188 & 214. Edited by Mark Rutkoski and Ani Boyajian, Essays by William C. Agee and Karen Wilkin, _Stuart Davis: A Catalogue Raisonné_, Three Volumes (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2007), 67 & 163-164. Essay by Mary Birmingham, _Dynamic Impulse: The Drawings of Stuart Davis_, exh. cat., Hollis Taggart Galleries, New York, New York, November 28, 2007 - January 12, 2008, 16 Fig. 5. Harry Cooper and Barbara Haskell, _Stuart Davis: In Full Swing_ (Washington: National Gallery of Art with Prestel Publishing, 2016) 68, plate 12.