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Biography
Upper Street, 1912
Chicago-born Manierre Dawson (1887-1969) was a major early American modernist painter — perhaps the Windy City's most progressive spirit. It is generally believed that this civil engineer and self-taught artist achieved a non-objective abstraction with no knowledge of the activities of Kandinsky, whose work Dawson's resembles. He began painting in 1903 or 1904: nature studies that recall Whistler's "nocturnes." By 1906, he painted figural compositions, such as Figures on Pale Blue, that show the obvious influence of Arthur B. Davies. Aspidistra, from the same year, is a minimalist still-life, painted with great precision. The organic curves of the plant have an Art Nouveau elegance. In contrast, Six Flowers in a Vase, painted in 1908, is more two-dimensional.
The artist stated that after graduating in civil engineering from the Illinois Institute of Technology in 1909, when he began working for Holabird and Roche as an architectural designer, he fell under Cézanne's spell: "The following year, . . . I was seriously involved in making pictures that were 'non-objective abstractions,' working from original themes." Prognostic (Milwaukee Art Center), probably Dawson's most famous work, which Gertrude Stein purchased, comes from 1910. Forever in search of stylistic sources, art historians have been struck by the painting's resemblance to what Kandinsky was doing in 1909-1910. Before that time, the avant-garde Russian painter was still working in the Jugendstil-Expressionistic mode. Prognostic, executed in early 1910, apparently pre-dates Kandinsky's famous "improvisations" of the same year, which represent the Russian artist's leap into pure non-objective art. The 1909 "improvisations" are still recognizable as representations of landscape. Susan S. Weininger, in Chicago Modern (2004) adds a possible source for Prognostic: lessons from Arthur Wesley Dow's book Composition (1899), and she quotes from Dawson's notebook: "[he was attempting] "to fix forms by painting or sculpture that have given me an emotion, hoping to find some who reacted as I did to these shapes and colors presented on canvas or in some plastic material. . . . " Furthermore, he stated that Prognostic was one of seven paintings influenced by his engineering and mathematics courses "in the background of coordinates and super-position of differentials. . . ."
In late June of 1910, Dawson made a trip to Europe. There is, unfortunately, no mention in his diary of avant-garde art that he may have seen, however, he did visit Gertrude Stein's residence, where Picasso's 1906 portrait of Stein (Metropolitan Museum of Art) was hanging, along with works by Cézanne, Matisse, and other paintings by Picasso. Surely Matisse's Olive Trees (Metropolitan Museum; Lehman Coll.) would have made an impression on Dawson. Writers assume that Dawson remained unaware of Kandinsky until the Armory Show toured Chicago. The rest of Dawson's story might be called his late period; moreover, he left Chicago in 1914 to settle on a farm in Michigan. Lacking encouragement and occupied with the demands of the farm, Manierre Dawson almost stopped painting. Despite his innovative genius, Dawson "ultimately had little effect on [Chicago's] modernists." In 1968 there was a retrospective of Manierre Dawson's works at the Ringling Museum, Sarasota, Florida, and at the Norton Gallery in Palm Beach. Another followed in 1976 in Chicago's Museum of Contemporary Art.
The artist stated that after graduating in civil engineering from the Illinois Institute of Technology in 1909, when he began working for Holabird and Roche as an architectural designer, he fell under Cézanne's spell: "The following year, . . . I was seriously involved in making pictures that were 'non-objective abstractions,' working from original themes." Prognostic (Milwaukee Art Center), probably Dawson's most famous work, which Gertrude Stein purchased, comes from 1910. Forever in search of stylistic sources, art historians have been struck by the painting's resemblance to what Kandinsky was doing in 1909-1910. Before that time, the avant-garde Russian painter was still working in the Jugendstil-Expressionistic mode. Prognostic, executed in early 1910, apparently pre-dates Kandinsky's famous "improvisations" of the same year, which represent the Russian artist's leap into pure non-objective art. The 1909 "improvisations" are still recognizable as representations of landscape. Susan S. Weininger, in Chicago Modern (2004) adds a possible source for Prognostic: lessons from Arthur Wesley Dow's book Composition (1899), and she quotes from Dawson's notebook: "[he was attempting] "to fix forms by painting or sculpture that have given me an emotion, hoping to find some who reacted as I did to these shapes and colors presented on canvas or in some plastic material. . . . " Furthermore, he stated that Prognostic was one of seven paintings influenced by his engineering and mathematics courses "in the background of coordinates and super-position of differentials. . . ."
In late June of 1910, Dawson made a trip to Europe. There is, unfortunately, no mention in his diary of avant-garde art that he may have seen, however, he did visit Gertrude Stein's residence, where Picasso's 1906 portrait of Stein (Metropolitan Museum of Art) was hanging, along with works by Cézanne, Matisse, and other paintings by Picasso. Surely Matisse's Olive Trees (Metropolitan Museum; Lehman Coll.) would have made an impression on Dawson. Writers assume that Dawson remained unaware of Kandinsky until the Armory Show toured Chicago. The rest of Dawson's story might be called his late period; moreover, he left Chicago in 1914 to settle on a farm in Michigan. Lacking encouragement and occupied with the demands of the farm, Manierre Dawson almost stopped painting. Despite his innovative genius, Dawson "ultimately had little effect on [Chicago's] modernists." In 1968 there was a retrospective of Manierre Dawson's works at the Ringling Museum, Sarasota, Florida, and at the Norton Gallery in Palm Beach. Another followed in 1976 in Chicago's Museum of Contemporary Art.
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