Silver Sun

1929

Arthur Dove
American, 1880–1946

In 1912 Arthur Dove made news when he exhibited in New York and Chicago ten pastels that were the first abstract works by an American to be seen by the public. Beginning with themes from nature, Dove had simplified and rearranged them, creating patterns, rhythms, and color harmonies that demonstrated how artists could dispense with representational subjects in order to communicate through form and color alone. From then on, Dove dedicated himself to exploring how he might depart from illusionism without abandoning nature.

Silver Sun reveals with particular clarity Dove’s method of recasting nature into art. The artist’s sense of wonder at the force and beauty of the world is apparent, but so is his control over his creative means and, ultimately, over our aesthetic experience. Dove imparted a metaphysical radiance through expanding rings of blue and green, and through his use of glowing metallic-silver paint. He simplified, adjusted, and accented the landscape until the pulsating image no longer represented the thing seen but rather conveyed feeling, impact, and meaning.

Dove remained committed to a personal vision. Nevertheless, he was well informed about current trends, and a web of interconnections links his work to that of others. For example, Silver Sun relates to the art of two of Dove’s friends, the painter Georgia O’Keeffe (see p. 116) and the photographer Alfred Stieglitz: they, like Dove, sometimes depicted transcendent skies in order to communicate a vision of the wholeness of nature.

Status: On View, Gallery 265
Department: Arts of the Americas

Artist: Arthur Dove
Title: Silver Sun
Origin: United States
Date: 1929
Medium: Oil, metallic paint, and an unidentified material (possibly wax) on canvas
Inscriptions: Signed verso, top stretcher bar: "Silver Sun/1929 Dove"
Dimensions: 55.3 × 74.9 cm (21 3/4 × 29 1/2 in.)
Credit Line: Alfred Stieglitz Collection
Reference Number: 1949.531

Paintings in The Art Institute of Chicago (Art Institute of Chicago, 1961), p. 129.
“Arthur Dove Exhibition,” Bulletin of The Art Institute of Chicago, 69 (July/Aug. 1975), ill.
Ann Lee Morgan, “Arthur Dove: Life and Work with Catalogue Raisonne” (Associated University Press, 1984).
Jonathan Stuhlman et. al., “Georgia O’Keeffe: Circling Around Abstraction,” exh. cat. (Hudson HIlls Press, 2007) p. 29 (ill.).
Judith A. Barter et al., American Modernism at the Art Institute of Chicago, From World War I to 1955, (Chicago: Art Institute of Chicago/Yale University Press, 2009), cat. 65.
Paintings at the Art Institute of Chicago: Highlights of the Collection, (Chicago: Art Institute of Chicago/Yale University Press, 2017) p. 114.

New York, S. M. Kootz Gallery, Modern American Painters, 1930, pl. 16.
New York City, Whitney Museum of American Art, Pioneers of Modern Art in America, Apr 9–May 19, 1946, cat. 40.
San Francisco Museum of Art, Arthur Dove, Nov 20, 1974–Jan 5, 1975, p. 41 (ill.); Buffalo, Albright–Knox Gallery, Jan 27–Mar 2; St. Louis Art Museum, Apr 3–May 27; Art Institute of Chicago, Jul 12–Aug 31; Des Moines Art Center, Sep 22–Nov 2; New York City, Whitney Museum of American Art, Nov 27, 1975–Jan 18, 1976.
Milwaukee Art Museum, Personal Intensity: Artists in Spite of the Mainsteam, Oct 10–Dec 22, 1991.
Tokyo, ASAHI Shimbun, Masterworks of Modern Art from The Art Institute of Chicago; Nagaoka, Niigata Prefectural Museum of Modern Art, Apr 20–May 29, 1994, Nagoya, Aichi Prefectural Museum of Art, Jun 10–Jul 24, 1994, Yokohama Museum of Art Aug 6–Sep 25, 1994.
Washington DC, Phillips Collection, Arthur Dove: A Retrospective, Sep 20, 1997–Jan 4, 1998; New York, Whitney Museum of American Art, Jan 15–Apr 12, 1998, Andover, Mass., Addison Gallery of American Art, Apr 25–Jul 12, 1998, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Aug 2–Oct 4, 1998.

Alfred Stieglitz Collection, New York; bequeathed through Georgia O’Keeffe to The Art Institute of Chicago, 1949.

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