Gene Davis, Black Red Orange, 1958, 12 x 10 inches, oil on canvas
It is always interesting to me to observe the moment when an artist opens a new door to his or her vocabulary or process -- the first glimpse of what will become a lifelong trajectory. Gene Davis, probably the most under-appreciated of the Washington DC color painters, began in 1958 to make very small paintings that employed vertical stripes and explored elemental rhythms and color resonances. The purity and potency of these first canvases is extraordinary, and their direct simplicity gives way by 1961 to the highly complex arrays and huge scale for which Davis is best known. But it is sometimes important to revisit and appreciate the clarity of the original impulse.
Gene Davis, Untitled, 1958, 10 x 12 inches, oil on canvas
Gene Davis, Salute, 1958, 14 x 20 inches, oil on canvas
Gene Davis, Two Yellows, 1959, 10 x 12 inches, oil on canvas
Gene Davis, Red Rattle, 1959, 34 x 34 inches, oil & magna on canvas
Gene Davis, Untitled, 1959, 34 x 43 inches, acrylic on canvas
Gene Davis, Pink Stripe, 1960, 92 x 62 inches, magna on canvas
Gene Davis , Untitled, 1960, 91 x 91 inches, acrylic on canvas
Gene Davis, Sun Ball, 1960, 88 x 93 inches, magna on canvas
Images from Artnet.com
