1951, Ralph Soule Ducasse, Salome -- George Washington U. Art Gallery (Washington)
From the museum label: Ducasse was one of the first artists collected by Luther Brady. A California abstractionist, his work of this period was full of large swaths of color and vigorous geometric shapes. Ducasse insisted he was not an abstract expressionist and that his work was representational. He liked to listen to opera while he painted; this canvas seems to be a representation of his engagement with Richard Strauss's opera Salome, centering around the Biblical story of Salome and St. John the Baptist. The large blotch at the center of the canvas echoes the climactic dissonant chord at the opera's end.
1951, Ralph Soule Ducasse, Salome -- George Washington U. Art Gallery (Washington)
From the museum label: Ducasse was one of the first artists collected by Luther Brady. A California abstractionist, his work of this period was full of large swaths of color and vigorous geometric shapes. Ducasse insisted he was not an abstract expressionist and that his work was representational. He liked to listen to opera while he painted; this canvas seems to be a representation of his engagement with Richard Strauss's opera Salome, centering around the Biblical story of Salome and St. John the Baptist. The large blotch at the center of the canvas echoes the climactic dissonant chord at the opera's end.