1924, Arthur Dove, Portrait of Ralph Dusenberry -- Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York)
From the museum label: Among the most accomplished American abstract artists, Dove created inventive symbolic portraits of friends using found materials. Ralph Dusenberry, Dove's neighbor, lived on a houseboat on the North Shore of Long Island. The artist selected the objects in this work for their associations with Dusenberry's personality and interests: the sheet music pasted at the bottom is a hymn that Dusenberry often sang, while the folding rulers that frame the composition point to his profession as an architect. The pieces of weathered wood refer to the docks, shingled cabins, and shipbuilding materials of the marine environment.
1924, Arthur Dove, Portrait of Ralph Dusenberry -- Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York)
From the museum label: Among the most accomplished American abstract artists, Dove created inventive symbolic portraits of friends using found materials. Ralph Dusenberry, Dove's neighbor, lived on a houseboat on the North Shore of Long Island. The artist selected the objects in this work for their associations with Dusenberry's personality and interests: the sheet music pasted at the bottom is a hymn that Dusenberry often sang, while the folding rulers that frame the composition point to his profession as an architect. The pieces of weathered wood refer to the docks, shingled cabins, and shipbuilding materials of the marine environment.