Charles Demuth
Calla Lilies (Bert Savoy)
Marsden Hartley
Movement No. 6, Provincetown
Georgia O’Keeffe
Flying Backbone
Arthur Garfield Dove
Something in Brown, Carmine, and Blue
Marsden Hartley
Movement No. 7, Provincetown
Gino Severini
Femme et enfant (Woman and Child)
Arthur Garfield Dove
Moon
Marsden Hartley
New Mexico No. 2
Attributed to Pablo Picasso
Tête de femme (Woman’s Head)
Arthur Garfield Dove
Yellow, Blue, and Violet
Marsden Hartley
Beau Blanc, St. Jeannet
Gino Severini
Femme assise dans un square (Woman Sitting in a Square)
Arthur Garfield Dove
Swinging in the Park (There Were Colored People There)
Bernard Karfiol
Nude and Figure
Marsden Hartley
Painting No. 69
Charles Duncan
Abstraction—Landscape
Stanton Macdonald-Wright
Spring Synchromy
Benjamin Kopman
Portrait—Bear
Marsden Hartley
Maine Landscape, Autumn No. 13 (recto); Untitled (verso)
Arthur Garfield Dove
Red Tree and Sun
Jules Pascin
Girl Seated
Marsden Hartley
Landscape No. 19
Georgia O’Keeffe
Radiator Building—Night, New York
Marsden Hartley
Painting No. 3
Florine Stettheimer
Portrait of Alfred Stieglitz
Marsden Hartley
Vase of Flowers
Diego Rivera
Le sucrier et les bougies (Sugar Bowl and Candles)
Marsden Hartley
Still Life No. 1
Alfred Henry Maurer
Girl in Red Dress
Charles Demuth
1883 - 1935
Calla Lilies (Bert Savoy)
1927
Oil on composition board
41 x 47 1/2 in. (104.1 x 120.7 cm)
Framed: 46 x 52 x 1 1/2 in. (116.8 x 132.1 x 3.8 cm)
Demuth painted “poster portraits” of friends during the 1920s, including O’Keeffe, Arthur Dove, and Charles Duncan. The paintings depict their subjects through symbolic elements that refer to their lives. Bert Savoy was a famous female impersonator in New York vaudeville who died in 1923 when struck by lightning on a beach in Long Island. The shell and wave refer to the beach, and calla lilies are traditionally associated with funerals.
Demuth often included the name of his subjects on his poster portraits, but omitted Savoy’s, disguising his identity just as the actor hid his biological gender on stage. Calla lilies are also used in weddings, representing the union of male and female, which would also have been appropriate for Savoy. Viewers unfamiliar with Savoy and his death would experience the painting simply as a lyrical still life, but those able to read the codes would discover the actor’s identity and understand the reference to his, and Demuth’s, homosexuality.