Corridor of Summer

Although Arthur B. Davies began as a traditional landscape painter, his style evolved into a highly personal, idiosyncratic one, as this evocative figural composition suggests. The painting's nude figures frolic in a landscape referencing classical mythology, while their sinuous poses pay tribute to the radical gestural movements of modern dance pioneer Isadora Duncan.

Davis exhibited in 1908 with the Eight, the group of painters who broke away from the National Academy of Design to organize their own shows but remained on good terms with the artistic establishment. As a result, he helped organize the 1913 Armory Show in New York, the landmark exhibition that first exposed American artists and audiences to modern art and thus indelibly changed the course of American art history.