The Cleveland Museum of Art

Collection Online as of April 19, 2024

Differential Complex

Differential Complex

1910
(American, 1887–1969)
America, 20th century
oil on board
Framed: 54.6 x 44.5 x 5.1 cm (21 1/2 x 17 1/2 x 2 in.); Unframed: 40.7 x 31.8 cm (16 x 12 1/2 in.)
Mr. and Mrs. William H. Marlatt Fund 2001.123
Location: not on view

Description

Differential Complex is one of seven abstractions Manierre Dawson created in 1910. It represents a major breakthrough in Western art, one of the first works in which an artist rejected representation and created a purely abstract composition. Dawson's works predates the paintings that are generally mentioned in art history textbooks as the world's first abstractions: the paintings created later in that same year by Arthur Dove (1880–1946) in Westport, Connecticut, and Wassily Kandinsky (1866–1944) in Munich, Germany. Dawson seems to have absorbed the idea of abstract design through exposure to the work of Arthur Wesley Dow (1857–1922) in his high school art classes. In addition, he seems to have read books by Denman Ross, particularly Ross's A Theory of Pure Design, which proposed creating nonrepresentational forms of art. Dawson's mathematical training and his work as an engineer also influenced his developments. Indeed, his early abstractions often suggest mathematical diagrams laid out on a blackboard. The radical geometric simplifications of Chicago architecture were another influence, as was the engineer's practice of thinking of structure in terms of invisible forces.
  • Dawson estate; sold February 4, 1990 to Mr. and Mrs. R. Shapiro, New York, NY; sold by Tim Foley of the Tilden Foley Gallery, New Orleans, LA; Hollis Taggart Gallery, New York, NY
  • Sims, Lowery Stokes. The Persistence of Geometry: Form, Content, and Culture in the Collection of the Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland: Cleveland Museum of Art, 2006. Mentioned and reproduced: P. 67, no. 57
    Adams, Henry. What's American about American art?: a gallery tour in the Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland: Cleveland Museum of Art, 2008. Reproduced: p. 118 - 119
  • Against the Grain: Modernism in the Midwest. Massillon Museum, Massillon, OH (organizer) (May 15-September 12, 2010); Riffe Gallery, Columbus, OH (November 4, 2010-January 9, 2011); Southern Ohio Museum, Portsmouth, OH (March 5-May 29, 2011).
    Massillon Museum (5/15/2010 - 9/12/2010), Riffe Gallery (11/4/2010 - 1/9/2011), and Southern Ohio Museum (3/5/2011 - 5/29/2011): "Against the Grain: Modernism in the Midwest", ex. cat. no. 1, p. 34.
    The Persistence of Geometry: Form, Content and Culture in the Collection of the Cleveland Museum of Art. Museum of Contemporary Art Cleveland (MOCA), Cleveland, OH (June 9-August 20, 2006).
    MOCA Cleveland (6/9/2006 - 8/20/2006): "The Persistence of Geometry: Form, Content and Culture in the Collection of the Cleveland Museum of Art", no. 57, p. 118, color repr. p. 14 & p. 67.
    New York, NY, Whitney Museum of American Art, Manniere Dawson: Early Abstractionist (8 July - 11 September 1988).
  • {{cite web|title=Differential Complex|url=false|author=Manierre Dawson|year=1910|access-date=19 April 2024|publisher=Cleveland Museum of Art}}

Source URL:

https://www.clevelandart.org/art/2001.123