Stuart Davis Exhibition Opens at National Gallery of Art, Washington

The National Gallery of Art in Washington opened an exhibition of paintings by Stuart Davis, on view from November 20, 2016, through March 5, 2017. The show presents works that reflect Davis’s long engagement with jazz rhythms and modern American visual culture, and it frames his distinctive studio practice for gallery visitors.

According to the National Gallery of Art, the exhibition groups examples of Davis’s paintings to emphasize how musical rhythms, commercial imagery, and urban modernity influenced his compositions. The presentation highlights both finished canvases and the artist’s working method, aiming to show how Davis developed motifs and layered forms across multiple works.

The National Gallery

The gallery said the installation offers a focused view of Davis’s mid-century practice, pointing to recurrent themes in his work and the ways he translated auditory ideas into visual form. The National Gallery hosted the exhibition in its galleries in Washington and made related interpretive materials available for visitors at the time of the show.

While the exhibition dates have passed, the National Gallery’s staging of the Stuart Davis show underscored the museum’s role in foregrounding American modernism and connecting Washington audiences with critical currents in twentieth-century art.

The National Gallery

The National Gallery of Art is a central cultural institution in Washington; staging a focused Stuart Davis exhibition brought a major moment in American modernism to local audiences and reinforced the museum’s role in the city’s arts scene.

• Venue: National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.

• On view: November 20, 2016–March 5, 2017.

• Focus: Stuart Davis’s jazz-inflected paintings and his working method.

• Presentation emphasized Davis’s use of rhythm, commercial imagery, and layered composition.

• Source: National Gallery of Art press materials and exhibition information.

Check the National Gallery of Art’s website for related programming, catalog entries, or future rehangs that revisit Stuart Davis or similar American modernist exhibitions.