Preston Dickinson

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Factory (c. 1920). Oil on canvas, Columbus Museum of Art.

William Preston Dickinson (September 9, 1889 – November 25, 1930) was an American modern artist, best known for his paintings of industrial subjects in the Precisionist style.

Biography[]

William Preston Dickinson was born on September 9, 1889 in New York City,[1] a third-generation American in a working-class family.[2] His father was an amateur painter who made a living as a calligrapher and interior decorator;[3] he died when Preston was only eleven years old.[2] By 1906, his family had relocated to Suffern, New York.[1]

Dickinson studied between 1906 and 1910 at the Art Students League of New York under William Merritt Chase,[3] as well as under Ernest Lawson.[2] His tuition at the art school was paid by philanthropist and art patron .[1] Barbey and art dealer also financed Dickinson's trip to Europe. From 1910 to 1914, he lived in Paris, where he studied at the Académie Julian and École des Beaux-Arts, and exhibited his work at the Paris Salon and the Salon des Indépendants.[3]

After the start of World War I, Dickinson returned to the U.S. in September 1914.[1] Lacking resources, he moved in with his mother, widowed sister and her son in the Bronx.[2] He shortly participated in several group exhibitions at the , ultimately receiving his first solo gallery show there in 1923.[1] He spent the summer of 1924 in Omaha, Nebraska, where he produced a series of drawings of the Peters Mills granaries and factory complex.[1] He lived in Quebec from 1925 to 1926, where he painted landscapes and street scenes.[1] By the end of the 1920s, he had established a reputation as an important American modernist and his works had entered public and private collections.[1]

In June 1930, Dickinson moved to Spain with friend and fellow painter , looking for a cheap place to live and paint.[1] Dickinson's money ran out by that autumn, but before he could leave Spain he was hospitalized with double pneumonia.[1] He died three days later, on November 25, 1930, in Irun, Spain, and was buried there.[1] He had long been in poor health, suffering from alcoholism among other conditions.[3]

Dickinson posthumously received his first solo museum show, staged at The Phillips Collection in 1931 by its founder and director Duncan Phillips, who had admired Dickinson's work.[3]

Work[]

Dickinson was one of the first American artists to focus on industrial subjects. He was working in the Precisionist mode by at least 1915,[1] and his depictions of factories and granaries predate those of fellow Precisionists Charles Sheeler and Charles Demuth.[4] Dickinson was motivated by a reverence for the benefits of technology and industry to humanity, as well as an interest in its formal qualities.[4] Many of his industrial scenes were imaginary (such as Factory (c. 1920), pictured at right),[4] though his work later shifted towards a greater realism.[1] Dickinson also produced many landscapes, depicting the Harlem River at many times during his life,[1] though he was most interested in the cut-stone architecture that lined and crossed the river.[2] He painted numerous still lifes of man-made objects, with table-top settings depicting "simple dining" being a recurring theme.[2]

Experimenting with a variety of techniques and styles, his work showed influence from a number of avant-garde art movements, such as Cubism, Futurism, Fauvism, and Synchromism.[4] His use of color was expressive, showing his influence by the Post-Impressionists and Fauves.[1] His later work, though superficially in a Precisionist style, utilizes off-balance, expressionistic compositions with jagged diagonals.[5] Some of his work in the 1920s was also observed by critics as having an Oriental influence, believed to derive from his studies of Japanese ukiyo-e art.[1]

Dickinson produced fewer than two hundred works during his twenty-year career.[2] He usually did not sign or date his works, which together with his stylistic experimentation makes it difficult to place them in a chronology.[2]

References[]

  1. ^ Jump up to: a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p Harnsberger, R. Scott (1992), Ten Precisionist Artists: Annotated Bibliographies, Westport: Greenwood Press, pp. 153–54, ISBN 978-0-313-27664-4.
  2. ^ Jump up to: a b c d e f g h Holman, Thomas S.; Zabriskie Gallery (2002), "Catalogue Essay", Preston Dickinson (1889-1930): Paintings and Drawings, New York: Zabriskie Gallery, archived from the original on March 3, 2006, retrieved October 3, 2011.
  3. ^ Jump up to: a b c d e "(William) Preston Dickinson - Biography", American Art @ The Phillips Collection, The Phillips Collection, retrieved September 16, 2011.
  4. ^ Jump up to: a b c d Roberts, Norma J., ed. (1988), The American Collections, Columbus Museum of Art, p. 96, ISBN 0-8109-1811-0.
  5. ^ Roberts 1988, p. 98.

Further reading[]

  • Cloudman, Ruth; Nebraska Art Association; Sheldon Memorial Art Gallery (1979), Preston Dickinson 1889-1930: Catalogue of an Exhibition Organized by the Sheldon Memorial Art Gallery, Lincoln, Nebraska, in Collaboration with the Nebraska Art Association, Lincoln, Nebraska Art Association.
  • Lochridge, Katherine; Heckscher Museum (1978), The Precisionist Painters, 1916-1949: Interpretations of a Mechanical Age: Heckscher Museum, Huntington, New York, July 7-August 20, 1978, Heckscher Museum.
  • Montclair Art Museum (1994), Precisionism in America, 1915-1941: Reordering Reality, Abrams, in association with the Montclair Art Museum, ISBN 978-0-8109-3734-5.

External links[]

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