Arthur Garfield Dove - New York American 1880-1946 - Original abstract graphite & watercolor painting on paper of a pair of Oxen. Signed lower right. 13" x 17". 22" x 26" Framed. Provenance: Private New York Collection.Arthur Garfield Dove (August 2, 1880 – November 23, 1946) was an American artist. An early American modernist, he is often considered the first American abstract painter. Dove used a wide range of media, sometimes in unconventional combinations, to produce his abstractions and his abstract landscapes. Me and the Moon from 1937 is a good example of an Arthur Dove abstract landscape and has been referred to as one of the culminating works of his career. Dove did a series of experimental collage works in the 1920s.He also experimented with techniques, combining paints like hand mixed oil or tempera over a wax emulsion as exemplified in Dove's 1938 painting Tanks, in the collection of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts.Dove was born to a wealthy family in Canandaigua, New York. His parents, William George and Anna Elizabeth, were of English ancestry. William Dove was interested in politics and named his son Arthur Garfield, after the Republican candidates for President and Vice-President in the 1880 election, James Garfield and Chester Arthur, who ultimately won the vote. Arthur Dove grew up loving the outdoors on a farm; however, his father was a very successful businessman who owned a brickyard (along with city real estate) and expected his son to become wealthy.[Dove's childhood interests included playing the piano, painting lessons, and being a pitcher on a high school baseball team. As a child, he was befriended by a neighbor, Newton Weatherby, a naturalist who helped form Dove's appreciation of nature. Weatherby was also an amateur painter who gave Dove pieces of leftover canvas to work with.Dove attended Hobart College and Cornell University, and graduated from Cornell in 1903.Dove was chosen to illustrate the Cornell University yearbook. Dove's illustrations proved popular because they brought life to the characters and situations they depicted. After graduation, he became a well known commercial illustrator in New York City, working for Harper's Magazine and The Saturday Evening Post.

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