Sunday, February 1, 2009

A Favorite Painting 4

Charles DeMuth, My Egypt 1927

American modernism at its finest, blending the almost technocratic clarity of its line and distribution of light with the sly mockery of the title (what, after all, will be the American equivalent of the pyramids thousands of years from now but the wreckage of our industrial architecture?). DeMuth's clean, illustrative style would not be out of place in a magazine advertisement, but the basic elements of the composition recall those of the German expressionists (or fellow American Lyonel Feininger) and it's not hard to see how he foreshadows the later Abstract Expressionists. The contemporary that I most associate him with is Charles Sheeler, whose work will likely make an appearance in this feature in the near future. What do you good readers think?

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Looks a little bit like th grain elevators down on the Buffalo waterfront. I guess they are all gone now. He called it My Egypt????
Mom