Up the Alley

Arthur Garfield Dove

1938

Oil on canvas

Dallas Museum of Art

The circular forms of Arthur Dove's early experiments in abstraction combine with brilliant, varied colors, expressing his highly personal response both to nature and to the nature of painting. Produced during his last, difficult year in Geneva, New York, where he had moved in 1933 to settle his parents' estate, this small painting exemplifies Dove's mature style. Dove was one of the earliest American artists to commit totally to abstraction, which he did after spending two years in France, where he absorbed both the colors and the increasingly nonrepresentational forms of Paul Cézanne and Henri Matisse. His friendship with photogra