Melvin Day

Still life with Bottle, Fruit and Glass. [Verso: Unfinished landscape]

Still life with Bottle, Fruit and Glass. [Verso: Unfinished landscape] by Melvin Day

Artwork Detail

Melvin Day's still life of domestic objects employs the fractured aesthetic of Cubism, which Day discovered through books and training with John Weeks. Day's use of black to create dramatic contrast, and his rampant use of pastiche, set his work apart from the more ordered and carefully structured still lifes of John Weeks. Unlike Weeks, who studied at art schools in Edinburgh and Paris, Day discovered the world of modern art through print media, and his early work, such as 'Still Life with Bottle, Fruit and Glass', reveals the energy and excitement as he rejected traditional modes of representation to experiment with techniques from modern art.

Title
Still life with Bottle, Fruit and Glass. [Verso: Unfinished landscape]
Artist/creator
Melvin Day
Production date
1948
Medium
oil on board
Dimensions
571 x 396 mm
Credit line
Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki, gift of Melvin and Oroya Day, 2015
Accession no
2015/25/2
Copyright
Copying restrictions apply
Department
New Zealand Art
Display status
Not on display

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