Vase of Flowers
Artist: Preston Dickinson (American, 1889–1930)
Original Dimensions: 30 1/4" x 18 3/8"
Location: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
About Artwork: (ca. 1926) "Under the enduring influence of Paul Cézanne, Dickinson frequently worked in still life, the genre that the Post-Impressionist master had established as equal in stature to landscape or portraiture. Vase of Flowers unites Dickinson's skill at representing a traditional subject with his more avant-garde ideas about composition and perspective; he was considered one of the painters working in a Precisionist style in the 1920s. This scene is framed by a blue curtain, a conventional device of illusionistic painting, yet the sharply tilted tabletop and the hard-edged planes of the depicted objects indicate the artist's interest in newer means of representation. The woman's fan and the vase holding tulips and tiger lilies are timeless still-life elements, although the ashtray with a cigarette balanced on its rim is a pleasingly modern touch." - (The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York)

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