Charles Demuth
1883-1935

Born to a prosperous family in Lancaster, Pennsylvania in 1883, Charles Demuth is one of the leading early modernists in the history of American art.  By the time of his death in 1935, he left behind a distinctive and diverse body of work, including theater scenes, portraits, landscapes, and still lives.

His initial education was of a high level (including study with Thomas Anshutz at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts), but it was his travels to Europe and his education there that cemented his aesthetic.  Significant in the development of his work was an extended stay in Paris between 1912 and 1914—with visits to London and Berlin—where he immersed himself in the avant-garde, and befriended such art world luminaries as Gertrude and Leo Stein, Marsden Hartley, and John Marin.  Upon his subsequent returns to the United States, he perfected his dandyish, aesthete persona; accompanied by Marcel Duchamp, who arrived in New York in 1915, the two frequented the jazz clubs and bars of Harlem and Greenwich Village.

In the early twentieth century, before the advent of the motion picture, live entertainment reached the peak of its popularity in the United States.  Performances of vaudeville, burlesque, revues, and musical comedy captured the imagination of audiences in numerous theaters across New York City.