“Manierre Dawson: Cubist or Civil Engineer?" at the Figge Art Museum -- July 27.
Thursday, July 27, 6:30 p.m.
Figge Art Museum, 225 West Second Street, Davenport IA
Offered in conjunction with the Art Bridges Collection Loan Partnership, an innovative art lending model of displaying outstanding works of American art from the Joslyn Art Museum, the Figge Art Museum's lecture Manierre Dawson: Cubist or Civil Engineer will be presented on July 27, with Dr. Randy J. Ploog exploring the art, life, and civil-engineering curriculum of the noted abstract painter and sculptor.
Born in Chicago in 1887, Dawson enrolled in the civil-engineering program at the Armour Institute of Technology. When he completed his four-year degree in 1909, his civil engineering curriculum had made a lasting impact on his creative vision. Mechanical drawing methods and descriptive geometry courses led him to paint in a geometric style by the end of 1908, while his analytic geometry and differential calculus courses contributed directly to his first series of abstract paintings in the spring of 1910. That year, during Dawson's first and only trip abroad, he met and exchanged ideas on painting with John Singer Sargent in Siena, and during his return visit to Paris, the artist attended a Saturday evening soiree at the apartment of Gertrude Stein. He also viewed paintings by Paul Cézanne in the gallery of Ambrose Vollard, and upon his return to America, Dawson stopped in New York to call upon avant-garde artist Arthur B. Davies, who introduced him to fellow painter Albert Pinkham Ryder.
Fueled by his tour of Europe and meeting Davies, 1911 through 1914 were the most productive years of Dawson's career. He produced paintings based on old master compositions, and in December of 1912, Davies invited Dawson to participate in the International Exhibition of Modern Art (better known as the Armory Show) in New York, but Dawson declined, lamenting that he had nothing appropriate to send. In 1914, however, Dawson participated in two group exhibitions. One was co-organized by Davies in conjunction with the Montross Gallery in New York, and traveled to the Detroit Museum of Art, the Cincinnati Museum of Art and the Peabody Institute in Baltimore. The other, organized by the Milwaukee Art Society (now the Milwaukee Art Museum), resulted in the sale of two paintings to noted collector Arthur Jerome Eddy. Yet the first real recognition of his work began in 1966 with a retrospective exhibition mounted by the Grand Rapids Art Museum. An exhibition organized by the John and Mable Ringing Museum in Sarasota and shared with the Norton Museum of Art in West Palm Springs followed a year later, and this exhibition brought Dawson to the attention of Robert Schoelkopf, who showed his work in New York in April 1969 and March 1981.
Manierre Dawson: Cubist or Civil Engineer? will be presented on July 27, participation in the 6:30 p.m. program is free, and admission to the Davenport museum is free throughout July. For more information, call (563)326-7804 and visit FiggeArtMuseum.org.
