Historic Roots Inspire an American Modernist

When we moved to Lancaster PA, one of my first discoveries was the Charles Demuth Museum and Studio.  I was taking a break from house hunting.  Missing my fellow art freaks and work as a docent at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, I was drawn to the home and studio of Charles Demuth, an American Modernist painter.  The Federal-style house was built in 1760 and is located in the historic center of downtown Lancaster, on east King Street.

The studio is where almost all of Demuth's work was created, and his mother's garden full of fruits and vegetables, as well as surrounding buildings, inspired much of his work.  I've always enjoyed visiting artists' studios.  It sheds light on our understanding of the creative process.  Demuth's working space was a small second-floor room with windows overlooking his mother's garden and the steeple of historic Trinity Lutheran Church.

The museum houses 38 Demuth works.  One of the highlights is a self portrait in oil of Demuth as a young man.

Much of the remaining collection is on paper and is stored (for protection) and rotated, often in context with temporary exhibits.

Although Demuth's work was inspired by his hometown of Lancaster, his career was not defined by regionalism.  He studied at Lancaster's Franklin and Marshall Academy and also in Philadelphia.  He spent time in Paris, New York and Provincetown and had many influential and avant-garde friends such as Georgia O'Keefe, Alfred Stieglitz, Marcel Duchamp, Gertrude Stein.  His longtime friend, the poet William Carlos Williams,  wrote the following poem that inspired Demuth's most-recognized painting, The Figure 5 in Gold (a poster portrait of letters and figures associated with Williams, as an homage to his friend).  The Figure 5 in Gold is part of the Metropolitan's collection in NYC.

The Great Figure, William Carlos Williams

Among the rain

and lights

I saw the figure 5

in gold

on a red

firetruck

moving

tense

unheeded

to gong clangs

siren howls

and wheels rumbling

through the dark city.

                                                    

                                                             The Figure 5 in Gold

The Demuth Museum is located at 120 East King Street, Lancaster, PA 17602, and is free to

the public.