+ Expand
Dimensions: measurements 13 by 7 3/4 in. alternate measurements (33.0 by 19.7 cm)
+ Expand
Provenance: Robert Locher, Lancaster, Pennsylvania, 1935 (acquired directly from the artist)
Kraushaar Galleries, New York
Mrs. Lathrop Brown, 1938 (acquired from the above; sold: Sotheby Parke Bernet, New York, April 20, 1979, lot 191, illustrated in color)
Acquired at the above sale
+ Expand
Exhibited: New York, Whitney Museum of American Art, Demuth Memorial Exhibition, December 1937-January 1938, no. 48
+ Expand
Literature: Emily Farnham, Charles Demuth: His Life, Psychology and Works, Vol. 2, Columbus, Ohio, 1959, no. 382, p. 561
+ Expand
Notes: This watercolor will be included in the forthcoming catalogue raisonné of the artist's work by Anne M. Lampe of the Demuth Museum, Lancaster, Pennsylvania.
PROPERTY FROM A DISTINGUISHED PRIVATE COLLECTION
In the years after the Civil War, vaudeville emerged as America's favorite form of entertainment. The ragtag assortment of performers included ventriloquists, contortionists, comedians, barbershop quartets, and even bird trainers. Though the institutionalization of variety-theater began in urban centers, vast theatrical networks eventually spread across the country, offering small-town America the chance to take in the spectacle. Charles Demuth attended venues in New York City and in his hometown of Lancaster, Pennsylvania at the Colonial Theater and the Fulton Opera House. During an especially prolific period from the mid-1910s through the early 1920s, Demuth executed a group of watercolors that capture the exuberance and variety of the vaudeville stage. Barbara Haskell notes that the concept of vaudeville offered artists "a vehicle with which to herald popular American culture. And, indeed, vaudeville did seem a particularly American form of entertainment, notwithstanding its roots in the English music hall. [Marsden] Hartley lauded it as such in several articles and Demuth identified it and its successors as 'really our stuff' (Charles Demuth, 1987, p. 53). One of Demuth's favorite subjects was the spirited dance acts that were mainstays of the raucous theater scene. Demuth's images frequently contained both subtle and overt sexual references and in Two Dancers transparent washes and undulating pencil work describe the flapper's dress and undergarments, which leave little to the imagination. Haskell writes: "The undercurrent of sensuality which permeates Demuth's post-1917 vaudeville and circus scenes owes its presence to the bohemian world of New York." She explains that, it was this environment with, "its libertine as well as its relatively innocuous aspects--that Demuth's genre watercolors document" (Charles Demuth, 1987, pp. 54, 59). The entire composition evokes the sense of libidinous abandon that sometimes characterized the vaudeville stage. Both dancers kick their legs up into extreme positions with apparent effortlessness. Rather than offering a physiologically correct rendering of the dancers' bodies, Demuth conveys the visual and emotional impressions of the performance. Although a packed theater could contain hundreds of spectators, Demuth realizes an unusual sense of proximity by omitting all references to the audience and the stage. The dancing couple occupies an ambiguous space, characterized by the vibrantly colored spheres, which represent the glow of the spotlights and encircle the dancers in their own world. Haskell notes that Demuth's contemporaries Arthur Dove and Georgia O'Keeffe used similar circular structures. However, she explains that "unlike Dove and O'Keeffe, Demuth did not present his elegant orbs as organic symbols of light; rather, they were meant to evoke intimacy and perfumed decadence" (Charles Demuth, 1987, p. 54).
