Dog in Motion

The importance of this painting is belied by its size, for it is one of the few truly Futurist canvases by an artist known primarily for being the first American Futurist. The painting ranks as one of the more successful attempts to capture speed and movement in paint, perhaps in part because of its quick execution. The blurred features of the dog and the vigorous scrubbing of the landscape combine to create an impression of tremendous vitality. Born near Naples in 1877, Stella emigrated to New York City in 1896, where he studied with William Merritt Chase and may have been influenced by Robert Henri as well, witness his preference for contemporary urban subjects. He encountered European modernism during a 1909-13 trip to Europe and was especially taken with a show of Fururist paintings at the Bernheim-Jeune Gallery in Paris in 1912. On his return in 1913, he experienced the further shock of the Armory Show, and for several years painted in a Futurist style, which gradually became more hieratic and stylized by the end of the decade with his famous works based on the Brooklyn Bridge, of which the Fogg owns three drawings. For the remainder of his career Stella vacillated wildly between styles and never recaptured the intensity of the work he did in the teens. Dating his works is difficult, so the "circa 1914" is an educated guess open to revision pending further research.