Mural (Radio City Men's Lounge Mural: Men without Women)
Stuart Davis
American, 1892–1964
1932
A monumental oil-on-canvas mural in which Stuart Davis arranges flattened, pictographic objects—cigars, radios, boats, cards, barber poles—into a rhythmic, advertising-inflected abstraction intended to animate a public lounge.
What hits you first is the billboard scale and graphic clarity: simplified icons and looping lines float across a restrained, smoky palette in a tight, syncopated composition that reads like jazz made visible.
By marrying European modernist flattening and collage with American commercial imagery, Davis opened a path from 1930s urban machine-age aesthetics to later explorations of consumer culture and Pop Art.
Medium
Oil on canvas
Dimensions
10' 8 7/8" x 16' 11 7/8" (327.2 x 518 cm)
Classification
Department
Credit
Gift of Radio City Music Hall Corporation
Accession
1399.1974
Palette
Art Terms
Exhibitions
