New York, 1914. Henry Fitch Taylor sets down his brushes before a canvas that transforms his practice. A woman with a guitar breaks down into geometric fragments, as if the painter’s gaze had explored a thousand facets.
A Fragmented Body in Modern Space
The female figure is barely discernible beneath planes of muted colors: beiges, gray-greens, off-whites punctuated by a vivid red in the upper left. The curves of the body mirror those of the guitar and an apple, creating a dialogue between flesh and object. Taylor divides the image into interlocking geometric forms, like pieces of a complex puzzle. Each fragment reveals a different part: a shoulder, the curve of a hip, the hollow of an arm. Sharp angles and vertical forms evoke buildings, an urban landscape that surrounds the musician. He captures this tension between organic softness and architectural rigor.
American Cubism Awakens
Henry Fitch Taylor discovers European Cubism at the 1913 Armory Show, the exhibition that revealed Picasso and Braque to the United States. In 1914, he seizes upon this visual revolution to create his own experiments. This work demonstrates his assimilation of Cubism: less radical than the French, more attached to color. Taylor belongs to those pioneers who imported European modernism onto American soil, radically transforming their country’s art.
Henry Fitch Taylor
Co-founder of the Madison Gallery, Taylor (1853-1925) devoted his life to promoting the avant-garde. His style oscillates between late Impressionism and moderate Cubism, always with that chromatic sensitivity that distinguishes him.
Think about it
💭 How do you perceive your own image when it fragments in the reflection of a shop window or a broken mirror?
About This Work
- Figure with Guitar II
- Henry Fitch Taylor
- 1914
- Oil on canvas
- 88.9 x 61 cm
- Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington
- https://americanart.si.edu/artwork/figure-guitar-ii-23817
