Royal Veil 1971

Gene Davis made "Royal Veil," with acrylic on canvas, sometime in the mid-20th century. Its simple vertical stripes of color may seem apolitical, but we can interpret the work as a response to social and institutional trends in the United States. Davis was associated with the Washington Color School, whose artists moved away from the emotional intensity of abstract expressionism. They embraced large-scale canvases and flat areas of pure color, a rejection of the angst-ridden brushstrokes of artists like Jackson Pollock. In a time of great social upheaval, the Color School artists offered a vision of calm and order, but this was also a challenge to the dominance of the New York art world. Artists in Washington sought an alternative to the established institutions of the art world in New York. To fully understand "Royal Veil," we need to examine how the art world was changing during the Cold War, and what role art played in shaping national identity.