Stuart Davis: Owh! in San Pao

Stuart Davis, Owh! in San Pao, 1951, oil on canvas, approx. 52 x 41 in.

This later Stuart Davis is bold and pared down. The colors and geometrics emerging from the yellow background give "Owh!" a lot of pow. All Davis works are punchy, but this one especially so. It is said that he was a practitioner of the Cubist idiom. I never thought of him that way, but it's clear that he's working with multiple perspectives. The words clearly look forward to pop. To me he's neither cubist or pop, but just the best purveyor of what the dynamism of jazz looks like. And can we hear it for yellow? It will never be a hip color (see: smiley face), but it's the color of optimism, and I love it.

Here's an earlier Stuart Davis post: Hot Still-scape in Six Colors.