Study for "Stars and Dews and Dreams of Night"

Art Historical Context

This delicate study by Arthur B. Davies captures the artist’s preparatory process for his larger painting *Stars and Dews and Dreams of Night*. Created around 1927, the drawing reveals Davies’ fascination with poetic, dreamlike subjects. As a leading figure in early twentieth-century American art, Davies often explored ethereal figures and nocturnal themes, blending Symbolist influences with a romantic vision of the human form. Executed in charcoal and chalk on wove paper mounted to board, the work demonstrates the medium’s expressive potential. Charcoal allows for rich tonal gradations and soft transitions, while chalk highlights add luminosity—qualities well suited to evoking the title’s celestial and dewy atmosphere. Such studies were essential to Davies’ practice, enabling him to refine compositions before translating them to canvas. Now part of the National Gallery of Art’s Corcoran Collection, this drawing offers visitors an intimate glimpse into the artist’s creative method and the quiet poetry that defined his late career.

About the Artist

Arthur B. Davies · 1862–1928

Arthur Bowen Davies (1862–1928) occupies one of the most paradoxical positions in American art history: a painter whose own canvases were lyrical, dreamlike, and rooted in the classical tradition, yet whose organizational energy and curatorial vision helped force American audiences into direct confrontation with the European avant-garde. Born on 26 September 1862 in Utica, New York, to English and...