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Pad No. 4

Stuart Davis

American Art

Pad No. 4 is one of a series of four related pictures that Stuart Davis made while working on The Mellow Pad, a painting in the Brooklyn Museum’s collection. In all of these works, the word pad appears—here, sideways in green at the upper left (and a 4 is in white at the lower right).

This title reveals the artist’s fondness for wordplay: pad refers both to an artist’s sketchbook and to the jazz slang term for “home.” A lifelong aficionado of jazz, Davis regularly drew analogies between the visual patterns of his pictures and the syncopated rhythms of this modern form of American music.
MEDIUM Oil on canvas
DATES 1947
DIMENSIONS 14 × 18 in. (35.6 × 45.7 cm) frame: 21 1/4 × 25 1/4 × 1 1/4 in. (54 × 64.1 × 3.2 cm)  (show scale)
SIGNATURE Signed lower center: "Stuart Davis"
COLLECTIONS American Art
ACCESSION NUMBER 1992.11.5
CREDIT LINE Bequest of Edith and Milton Lowenthal
MUSEUM LOCATION This item is not on view
CAPTION Stuart Davis (American, 1892-1964). Pad No. 4, 1947. Oil on canvas, 14 × 18 in. (35.6 × 45.7 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Bequest of Edith and Milton Lowenthal, 1992.11.5 (Photo: Brooklyn Museum, 1992.11.5_SL1.jpg)
IMAGE overall, 1992.11.5_SL1.jpg. Brooklyn Museum photograph
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