Tanks and Snowbank, 1933, by Arthur Dove, one of the works on show at Schoelkopf Gallery.
Dove (1880-1946) was born into a wealthy family in Canandaigua, New York, and became a commercial illustrator. In 1907 he travelled to Europe where he encountered various Modernist movements of the day including Fauvism.
The journey and the ideas he encountered had such a powerful impact on him that he left his job in the city, moved to a farm, and devoted the rest of his time to painting.
Shortly after he was introduced to Alfred Stieglitz (1864-1946), the photographer and gallery owner, who exhibited Dove’s pictures in his 1910 show Younger American Painters. A group of Dove’s pastels are now considered the first public showing of abstract works by a US artist.
Arthur Dove: Yes, I Could Paint a Cyclone takes its name from a famous comment the artist made in an interview with the Chicago Examiner about his abstract work. He added: “I would paint the mighty folds of the wind in comprehensive colours; I would show repetitions and convolutions of the range of the tempest.”
Music, 1913, by Arthur Dove, one of the works on show at Schoelkopf Gallery.
The exhibition follows his career starting with early works such as Music (1913), which owes a debt to the Futurists and early Cubists, into his later pictures including the 1945 oil Untitled (Abstraction), painted the year before his death.
Prices range from $50,000 to more than $3m.
Arthur Dove, Untitled (Abstraction), 1945, one of the works on show at Schoelkopf Gallery.
Fitting subject
Despite taking inspiration from abroad, Dove lived and worked most of his life in New York, making him a fitting subject for the gallery as it opens the doors to its new location.
Schoelkopf, which specialises in American art from 1875 to the present, was previously located on East 80th Street on the Upper East Side and will now be at 390 Broadway, Tribeca, in a 4800 sq ft gallery.
The firm’s founder Andrew Schoelkopf was formerly in the Christie’s American paintings department, served as director of the Robert Schoelkopf Gallery (founded by his father) and was president of the Art Dealers Association of America from 2018-21.
