Arthur Dove (1880 - 1946). Arthur Garfield Dove 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 made a series of experimental collages 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 and expected his son to become wealthy. Dove's childhood interests included playing the piano, painting lessons, and pitching on a high school baseball team. As a child, he was befriended by a neighbor, Newton Weatherby, a naturalist who took him along on hunting, fishing, and camping excursions conducive to 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, where he enrolled in elective art classes. He graduated from Cornell in 1903. Dove was chosen to illustrate the Cornell University yearbook. Dove's illustrations proved popular by bringing life to the characters and situations depicted. After graduation, he became a well known commercial illustrator for Harper's Magazine and The Saturday Evening Post in New York City. Dove's parents were upset at his choice to become an artist instead of a more profitable profession that his Ivy League degree would have enabled, and they would prove unsympathetic to the difficulties that came with a career in art. In 1907, Dove and his first wife, Florence, traveled to France and moved to Paris, then the world's art capital. They made short trips to both Italy and Spain. While there, Dove joined a group of experimental artists from the United States, which included Alfred Henry Maurer. Dove and Maurer remained friends until Maurer's suicide in 1932. While in Europe, Dove was introduced to new painting styles, in particular the Fauvist works of Henri Matisse, and he exhibited at the annual Autumn Salon in 1908 and 1909. Feeling a clearer sense as an artist, he returned to New York. His return to commercial illustration was unsatisfying, so Dove moved out of New York to make a living off farming and fishing while devoting the rest of his time to painting. His son, William C. Dove, was born on July 4, 1909. When Dove returned to America in 1909 he met Alfred Stieglitz, probably by way of Maurer's written introduction. Stieglitz was a well known photographer and gallery owner who was very active in promoting modern art in America, including works by European artists that had never been seen before in the U.S. Dove decided to quit working as an illustrator but was in need of artistic identity along with emotional bolstering and Stieglitz filled both these roles. The photographer was 16 years older than Dove and his urban, Jewish and European cultural roots were in contrast to Dove's rural Anglo-Saxon Protestant heritage. Dove was said to be gentle, quiet, and a good friend while Stieglitz was known as being argumentative and shrewd. They found their common ground in the idea that art forms should embody modern spiritual values, not materialism and tradition. With Stieglitz's support, Dove produced what are known as the first purely abstract paintings to come out of America. Dove's works were based on natural forms and he referred to his type of abstraction as extraction where, in essence, he extracted the essential forms of a scene from nature. Dove exhibited his works at Stieglitz's 291 gallery in 1910 as part of the show Younger American Painters, which also included Dove's old friend Maurer. Dove showed one painting, a large still life painted in France entitled The Lobster, which would be his last representational work. Stieglitz provided Dove with his first one-man show in 1912 at the 291.