Hôtel de France

Artist Stuart Davis (American, 1892 - 1964)

Date1928

MediumOil on canvas

DimensionsUnframed: 28 7/8 × 23 7/8 inches (73.34 × 60.64 cm)
Framed: 34 1/8 × 29 inches (86.68 × 73.66 cm)

Credit LinePurchase: William Rockhill Nelson Trust and Nelson Gallery Foundation through the exchange of bequests of Inez Grant Parker; Content Aline Johnson in memory of her mother, Augusta Adelaide Johnson; Thomas Hart Benton; Katherine Harvey; Frances M. Logan; and Mrs. Nell H. Stevenson from the estate of S. Herbert Hare; and gifts of Claudine Hancock Boyle in memory of her husband, Murat Boyle; Mr. and Mrs. Perry Faeth; Mr. and Mrs. Albert R. Jones; Mrs. Peter T. Bohan; and Mrs. David M. Lighton through the Friends of Art; and another Trust property

Object number96-21

SignedSigned lower right: stuart davis

On View

Not on view

Collections

American Art

Terms

DescriptionThe composition depicts a Paris street scene with one road going diagonally across the foreground and another parallel to it moving diagonally across the middle ground. On the triangular lot formed by the intersection of the two streets are the Hotel de France; a fire hydrant; two kiosks, one of which has a sign reading "Suze;" and a lamp post. On the far side of the 2nd street is a row of buildings, one of which has the sign "Hotel" on it.Exhibition History

Exhibition History

Paris by Americans: Exhibition of Work by Americans in Paris, Downtown Gallery, New York, October 7–28, 1928, no. 3.

Exhibition of American Contemporary Art, Municipal Art Gallery, Atlantic City, N.J., June 19–October 1, 1929, no. 14.

Stuart Davis, Crillon Galleries, Philadelphia, December 5–21, 1931, no cat.

Marsden Hartley, Stuart Davis, Cincinnati Modern Art Society, Ohio, October 24–November 24, 1941, unnumbered.

Stuart Davis, Museum of Modern Art, New York, October 16, 1945–February 3, 1946, unnumbered.

Americans in Paris (1921–1931): Man Ray, Gerald Murphy, Stuart Davis, Alexander Calder, Phillips Collection, Washington, D.C., April 27–August 18, 1996, unnumbered.

Gallery Label

Hôtel de France is the first painting Stuart Davis completed during a fourteen month stay in Paris beginning in 1928. The bright palette, jaunty composition and picturesque street scene convey the American artist's delight in the city's unique sights, particularly in the area of Montparnasse, where he settled. Vertically oriented, the composition calls particular attention to the white hotel façade, red pissotière (public urinal), green advertising kiosk and black lamppost. Signs of the influence of French Cubism are evident in the interplay between two-dimensional shapes and three-dimensional space as well as in the inclusion of prominent textured forms. The visual rhythms of Davis' work approximate the syncopation of American jazz, which enjoyed international popularity for its rebellious and youthful spirit.

Provenance

To (Downtown Gallery, New York, 1928);

to Martin C. Schwab, Chicago, by 1929;

to Katherine Boutet Scallan (his daughter), Chicago, by descent, 1947;

to (Owings-Dewey Fine Art, Santa Fe, 1995);

to (Gerald Peters Gallery, Santa Fe, 1995);

to the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, 1996.

Published References

Margaret Breuning, “Art Season Opens with Many Shows and Promise of Brilliant Events,” New York Evening Post, October 13, 1928, sec. 3, 6.

Edward Alden Jewell, “Art Galleries Offer a Rich Display: French Art Now Here in Abundance—Native Painters Reveal Present Trend—British and American Etchings,” New York Times, October 14, 1928, sec. 10, 13.

transition (Paris) 14 (Fall 1928), cover.

Paris by Americans: Exhibition of Work by Americans in Paris, exh. checklist (New York: Downtown Gallery, 1928), unpaginated.

Edward Alden Jewell, “Contemporary American Art Joins Boardwalk Parade: Some of Our Leading Moderns Put on an Excellent Show in Atlantic City,” New York Times, June 23, 1929, X10.

Chicago Evening Post Magazine of the Art World, July 2, 1929, clipping, NAMA curatorial files.

“Boardwalk Gallery Made a Popular Start,” New York World, October 13, 1929, sec. 2, 5.

Exhibition of American Contemporary Art, exh. cat. (Atlantic City, N.J.: Atlantic City Art Association, 1929), unpaginated.

Weldon Bailey, “Exhibition of Paintings by Stuart Davis Seen in Crillon Galleries,” Philadelphia Record, December 13, 1931, 8D.

Marsden Hartley, Stuart Davis, exh. cat. (Cincinnati: Cincinnati Modern Art Society, 1941), 13.

James Johnson Sweeney, Stuart Davis, exh. cat. (New York: Museum of Modern Art, 1945), 35.

Winthrop Sargeant, “Why Artists Are Going Abstract: The Case of Stuart Davis,” LIFE, February 17, 1947, 80.

Rudi Blesh, Stuart Davis (New York: Grove Press, 1960), 51, pl. 22.

Dickran Tashjian, William Carlos Williams and the American Scene, 1920–1940, exh. cat. (New York: Whitney Museum of American Art, in association with University of California Press, 1978), 26.

Jane Myers, ed., Stuart Davis: Graphic Work and Related Paintings, exh. cat. (Fort Worth: Amon Carter Museum, 1986), 8, 24, 42.

Lewis Kachur, Stuart Davis: An American in Paris, exh. cat. (New York: Whitney Museum of American Art at Philip Morris, 1987), 6.

Patricia Hills, Stuart Davis (New York: Harry N. Abrams, in association with National Museum of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, 1996), 82, 84.

Elizabeth Hutton Turner et al., Americans in Paris (1921–1931): Man Ray, Gerald Murphy, Stuart Davis, Alexander Calder, exh. cat. (Washington, D.C.: Counterpoint, in association with Phillips Collection, 1996), 31, 52, 166, 170.

Diane Scharper, “Americans in Paris Changed the Look of Modern Art,” Baltimore Sun, August 2, 1996, 1E, 3E.

Margaret C. Conrads, “Museum Acquires Stuart Davis Painting,” News (Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art), April 1997, 2, cover.

Alice Thorson, “Giant Arachnid Tops Acquisition List,” Kansas City Star, May 11, 1997, K3.

“Sheldon Finally Achieves Goal of Acquiring Work by Cornell,” Sunday World-Herald (Omaha, Neb.), June 15, 1997, Parade magazine sec., 13.

Calendar of Events (Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art), October 2002, 8.

Margaret C. Conrads, ed. The Collections of the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art: American Paintings to 1945 (Kansas City, Mo.: The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 2007), 1: 23, 212, 223-27 (repro.), 2: 100-01 (repro.).

Deborah Emont Scott, ed., The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art: A Handbook of the Collection, 7th ed. (Kansas City, MO: Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 2008), 178 (repro.).

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