Davis’s blaring colors, geometric shapes, and bold lines helped capture the quickening pulse of early-twentieth-century America. In the 1920s and 1930s, when most of his contemporaries were still using nineteenth-century techniques, Davis delved into abstraction, appropriating images and rhythms from jazz bars, backstreets, and the industrial clutter of cities.

An early jazz enthusiast, Davis sought to create a style of painting that was as distinctively American as its musical counterpart. As he noted, “Jazz music always plays a part in my inspiration, because I always think of it as art. And I think, well if they can do it, maybe I can too. Only I’m making a painting.”

For this work, Davis adapted jazz’s combination of careful structure and free improvisation. Inspired by the industrial landscape of the 1950s, the composition of this two-part painting is both fractured and infused with rhythm. The left side suggests an interior scene, while the right side evokes urban architecture or a factory environment. Bright red and blue frame the heavy black outlines.