Charles Demuth
1883-1935
Charles Demuth is today known as one exceptional, elegantly innovative watercolor artist, one of the best that America had. His art ranges from flowers to industrial landscapes, always suggesting his fascination with the precision of architectural shapes.
Demuth was born in a Lancaster, Pennsylvania. He was the only child of a wealthy Lancaster tobacco merchant; grow up in stabile and quiet environment. He suffered a delicate health and lameness. He completed studies at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, traveled twice to Paris and Berlin. There he was part of the avant-garde scene.
As a young man he came in contact with Japanese art, and adopted a dandified manner and world weary estheticism. While traveling he experimented with a series of Modernist trends, including Cubism, Dada, and Precisionist painting, for which he's best known.
After his first solo exhibition in 1914, in New York, he quickly expanded his watercolor style toward bright colors, expressive drawing, and socially complex subjects.
In the late 20s and early 30s, Demuth created large works in oil that range from prophetic Pop iconography (his famous I Saw The Figure 5 in Gold, 1928) and poster art to the urban industrial visions of Precisionism.
Demuth produced more than one thousand drawings and paintings. He created most of his art in his home in a small studio, overlooking the garden. The garden was the source of inspiration for his most memorable watercolors. Demuth died of complications from diabetes in 1935.
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