The Old Brick Plant Comes Home to Geneva
19 December 2019 The Old Brick Plant Comes Home to Geneva
Thanks to the generosity of Richard A. Scudamore 55, a fourth watercolor painting by renowned 20th century artist Arthur Dove has been added toThe Collections of Hobart and William Smith Colleges.
The Old Brick Plant, produced in 1937, is Doves interpretation of his fathers former brick plant located just outside Geneva, says Anna Wager, the Clarence A. Davis 48 Visual Arts Curator. The image depicts an abstracted red-rust brick plant, three undulating black vertical lines and a landscape of muted greens and browns. The plant sat on the site of what is now the Geneva Industrial Park.
Dove was a member of the Hobart class of 1903 before receiving his undergraduate degree from Cornell University. He spent his early years in Geneva and worked in a studio in theDove Block, which was built by his father, a successful brick manufacturer. The paintings Dove created when he moved back to Geneva in the 1930s, following a period in France, often feature subjects found in Geneva or in the surrounding Finger Lakes area.
The addition of this fourth watercolor means that we now have a concentrated focus on Doves work in Geneva in the 1930s, Wager says. The Colleges collection includes three other Dove watercolors, all donated by Scudamore: St. Peters, Happy Clamshell and Switch Engine.
Doves reputation as one of the most important painters of the American 20thcentury has grown steadily since his death in 1946. He is considered one of the first Americans to work in the modernist tradition as well as the first American abstract painter. His work is found in most major museums, including the Metropolitan and Whitney in New York, The Art Institute of Chicago, the Smithsonian Museum and the National Gallery of Art in Washington D.C.
Doves painting style is abstract but also grounded in this specific location, says Wager. Spending time engaging with it shows how layered and nuanced his works are and what they can tell us about Geneva, both in the 1930s and now.
Dove is remembered at HWS through theArthur Dove 03 Art Award, established in 1980 by William B. Carr. The award is used to purchase a works of art created by students at the Colleges and chosen from the Student Art and Architecture Exhibition, held every spring in the Davis Gallery.
Scudamore earned his B.S. degree in biology and chemistry at Hobart College. Upon graduating, he completed a three-year ROTC commitment before moving to California to pursue a career in real estate. He currently lives in Newport Beach, Calif.