Early Abstract and Modernist Painting
Helen Torr (1886–1967)
Purple and Green Leaves, 1927
During the 1920s, Helen Torr participated in the development of a distinctly American brand of modernism along with fellow artists and friends such as her husband, Arthur Dove, and Georgia O’Keeffe. Typical of Torr’s flattened still-life paintings, Purple and Green Leaves, a simplified arrangement of tall, layered fronds, verges on the abstract. The image is singularly modern, but because Torr depicted the leaves as if framed in an arched recess space, it also suggests a medieval stained glass window. The glowing yellow and deep purple tints of the foliage, animated by faceted rays of color, lend the picture a mystical resonance. Likely featured in an exhibition of women artists that O’Keeffe organized at the Opportunity Gallery in New York City in 1927, the work demonstrates Torr’s sensitivity to her natural environment and her efforts to reveal its invisible, transcendent essence.
Learn more about this painting on the Terra Foundation website. This work is also part of the interactive ArtNav platform. Click on the image above to discover more.
Early Abstract and Modernist Painting
Joseph Stella (1877–1946)
Telegraph Poles with Buildings, 1917
Max Weber (1881–1961)
Construction, 1915
Patrick Henry Bruce (1881–1936)
Peinture, 1917–18
Marsden Hartley (1877–1943)
Painting No. 50, 1914–15
Arthur Dove (1880–1946)
Nature Symbolized #3: Steeple and Trees, 1911–12
Arthur Dove (1880–1946)
Sails, 1911–12
Charles Demuth (1883–1935)
Welcome to Our City, 1921
Yasuo Kuniyoshi (1880–1953)
Boy with Cow, 1921
Stuart Davis (1892–1964)
Super Table, 1925
Helen Torr (1886–1967)
Purple and Green Leaves, 1927
Arthur Dove (1880–1946)
Boat Going through Inlet, c. 1929
John Graham (1881–1961)
The Green Chair, 1928
John Storrs (1885–1956)
Politics, 1931
Ernest Lawson (1873–1939)
Brooklyn Bridge, 1917–20
John Marin (1870–1953)
Sailboat, Brooklyn Bridge, New York Skyline, 1934
Georgia O'Keeffe (1887–1986)
Red Amaryllis, 1937
Albert Eugene Gallatin (1881–1952)
Room Space, 1937–38
Milton Avery (1885–1965)
Adolescence, 1947
George Tooker (1920–2011)
Highway, 1953
Ed Paschke (1939–2004)
Topcat Boy, 1970
Beauford Delaney (1901–1979)
Untitled (Village Street Scene), 1948
Philip Evergood (1901–1973)
Passing Show, 1951
Jamie Wyeth (b. 1946)
Kalounna in Frogtown, 1986