Arthur Dove

(1880-1946)

Yours Truly 16 1/2 x 21 1/2 in. (41.9 x 54.6 cm.)

Footnotes

Provenance
An American Place, New York.
The Downtown Gallery, New York.
Terry Dintenfass Gallery, New York.
Hirschl & Adler Galleries, Inc., New York, 1978.
Adelson Gallery, New York, 1979.
Coe Kerr Gallery, New York, by 1982.
Acquired by the present owner from the above, 1982.

Exhibited
New York, The Intimate Gallery, Arthur G. Dove Paintings, 1927, December 12, 1927–January 17, 1928, n.p., no. 14.
New York, Hirschl & Adler Galleries, Inc., The Eye of Stieglitz, October 7-November 2, 1978, p. 24, no. 19, illustrated.
Alabama, The Birmingham Museum of Art, March 1979.
San Francisco, John Berggruen Gallery, American Paintings and Drawings, 1980.
San Francisco, John Berggruen Gallery, Three Decades: American Paintings of the 20s, 30s and 40s, 1982.
Greenville, Delaware, Somerville Manning Gallery, Wyeth to Warhol: Modern Masters from Past to Present, April 27-June 2, 2018, n.p., illustrated.
New York, The Winter Show, January 24-February 2, 2020.
London, J C Gallery, Arthur Dove: Extraction, Not Abstraction, May 1–July 5, 2024, pp. 20-21, illustrated.

Literature
A.L. Morgan, Toward the Definition of Early Modernism in America: A Study of Arthur Dove, Ph.D. dissertation, The University of Iowa, Iowa City, 1973, p. 257, no. 27.19.
A.L. Morgan, Arthur Dove: Life and Work, with a Catalogue Raisonné, Newark, Delaware, 1984, pp. 52, 160-61, 380, no. 27.17, illustrated.
R. DeLue, Arthur Dove: Always Connect, Chicago and London, 2016, pp. 148, 311.

One of the most inventive American Modernists, Arthur Dove was the first of his generation to begin creating nonobjective paintings as early as 1910, following a two-year sojourn to Paris where he was exposed to the works of Henri Matisse (1869-1954), Paul Cézanne (1839-1906), and the Fauves. Around this same time, Dove was introduced to Alfred Steiglitz (1864-1946) through his dear friend Alfred Maurer (1868-1932), which would forever alter his life and career. Dove, along with John Marin (1870-1953) and Georgia O'Keeffe (1887-1986), would stand amongst Steiglitz's most beloved, protected, and promoted artists. According to renowned modern art historian Barbara Haskell, "Stieglitz's role in Dove's life was far more than that of a dealer. He provided the support and encouragement for Dove that was so lacking elsewhere in America. Steiglitz and Dove maintained a correspondence throughout the years that served as Dove's artistic lifeline. When asked what Steiglitz meant to him as an artist, Dove replied, 'Everything...Because I value his opinion as one who has always known. I do not think I could have existed as a painter without that super encouragement and the battle he has fought day by day for twenty-five years. He is without a doubt the one who has done the most for art in America. Steiglitz's contribution to American art of the first quarter of the century cannot be overestimated." (B. Haskel, Arthur Dove, Boston, 1974, p. 12.)

Overshadowed by their European counterpoints and pushed aside by the Abstract Expressionists, the early American Modernists were often overlooked for their advancement of abstraction and the foundation they paved for future generations, particularly Arthur Dove. More than any other Modernist of his generation, Dove sustained his commitment to abstraction for over 35 years through his endless exploration of line, plane, texture, and color. Inspired by nature and seeking to distill his paintings into the purest form of abstraction possible, the works he produced in the 1920s are some of his most advanced. These works, including Yours Truly, serve as a glimpse of what would come from the next generation, particularly the works of the great international stars of the New York School Mark Rothko (1903-1970), Robert Motherwell (1915-1991), and Franz Kline (1910-1962).

Painted in 1927, Yours Truly originates from a productive period in Dove's artistic career. When Dove painted the present work in 1927, he began to take inspiration from American popular music comprised of The Great American Songbook, with titles referencing scores by such artists as George Gershwin (1898-1937) and Irving Berlin (1888-1989). While Dove's titles from this period carry various meanings, Dove's source of inspiration for Yours Truly is believed to stem from the Broadway musical of the same title that opened at the Shubert Theater in January of 1927 and closed in May of that year. The production ran for a total of 127 performances and its title track, "Yours Truly," would have been familiar to contemporary audiences of the time.

Yours Truly was also painted during Dove's years on Long Island from 1920 to 1933, a period in which Dove blossomed creatively producing numerous drawings, pastels, oils, and notable collages. In 1921, Dove left his wife and son in Westport, Connecticut and went to live with neighbor and fellow artist, Helen Torr (1886-1967) on a houseboat in Huntington Harbor on the north shore of Long Island. After 1924, Dove and Torr took a small studio on the shore and spent the winters of 1927 and 1928 on land while continuing to call the houseboat home. Painted with a warm palette and dynamic brushwork, Yours Truly was produced at the height of Dove's relationship with Torr and at the end of 1927, Yours Truly along with eighteen of Dove's other paintings from that year were exhibited at Stieglitz's The Intimate Gallery.

Proceeding the opening of this exhibition, renowned New York Times art critic Edward Alden Jewell (1888-1947) wrote, "The paths [Dove] treads are not for casual feet. Yet even one who does not understand is caught now and then with an inexplicable and fugitive thrill before some orchestration of color and form. And you may carry away, along with so much that baffles, wraithlike memories of iridescence found in shells, or patterns dropped in passing by one who has entered a door that closes behind him." (E.A. Jewell, "Arthur Dove's New Work," New York Times, December 18, 1927, sec. 9, p. 12) In Yours Truly, Dove's passion for transforming nature's elements into color and shapes applied to canvas is on full display and resides in his oeuvre as an exemplary triumph of his unique ability to unite jarring, yet controlled expanses of pigment into powerful and dynamic compositions.