From a Wasp

Arthur Dove lived in France from 1908 to 1909, where he absorbed the lessons of Pablo Picasso and other avantgarde artists working in Paris at the time, including fellow American Max Weber. Upon his return to New York, Dove joined the circle of artists at Alfred Stieglitz’s 291 gallery, and he became the first American painter to experiment with pure abstraction in works like From a Wasp. Employing subdued colors, perhaps in acknowledgement of the tones of Analytic Cubism, Dove created a tightly focused, highly abstract composition that renders the curving forms of a wasp’s body as a series of overlapping planes.