Painting by Jean Davidson

Jean Davidson is one of the founders of modern American abstract painting. By the 1960s, she had already made a name for herself as a figurative artist and the author of numerous portraits and still-lifes. Over the past thirty years, however, she has worked in abstract painting. A devoted colorist at the beginning of her career, Jean Davidson later turned to the maximum use of soft tones close to white, managing to create pronounced internal contrasts. For the past forty years, the artist has produced works ranging from realistic representativeness to abstraction, from bright tones to the complete absence of colour. Kazimir Malevich's White Square on a White Ground (1918) was an important influence on Jean Davidson's oeuvre and led to the White Series begun by the artist in late 1970s. The artist has contributed to more than twenty solo and group exhibitions. The show held at the Marble Palace was her first ever display in Russia. Organized by the Ludwig Museum in the Russian Museum, the exhibition comprised fifteen works from Jean Davidson's "white period".