Many American artists traveled to Paris, France, to further their careers. Several of the American portraitists, realists, impressionists, and abstract artists that studied, lived, and worked in Paris, France during the late 19th and early 20th centuries wrote letters home to family and friends describing their lives there. One of these artists was Andrew Michael Dasburg, and here you will find letters to his wife, Grace Mott Johnson, during his stay in Paris in 1910.
Many American artists traveled to Paris, France, to further their careers. Several of the American portraitists, realists, impressionists, and abstract artists that studied, lived, and worked in Paris, France during the late 19th and early 20th centuries wrote letters home to family and friends describing their lives there. One of these artists was Andrew Michael Dasburg, and here you will find letters to his wife, Grace Mott Johnson, during his stay in Paris in 1910.
Painter and lithographer Andrew Michael Dasburg (1887-1979) was born in Paris, France, and later moved to New York City. While studying art in New York he met his future wife, Grace Mott Johnson, and in 1909 he traveled with her to Paris. They joined the modernist circle of artists living there, including Morgan Russell, Jo Davidson, and Arthur Lee. Johnson returned to the United States in early 1910, but Dasburg stayed in Paris, where he met Henri Matisse, Gertrude and Leo Stein, and then became influenced by the paintings of Cézanne and Cubism. Upon meeting Alfred Stieglitz and becoming part of his avant-garde circle, Dasburg used what he'd seen in Paris to become one of the earliest American cubists. He eventually moved to Taos, New Mexico, and moved away from abstract art, instead using the southwestern US landscape as inspiration.
Explore the fully digitized Andrew Dasburg and Grace Mott Johnson papers on the Archives of American Art website!