Ciervo en el bosque

Marguerite Zorach, American, 1887 - 1968

1914

painting

gouache on paperboard

Purchased with funds from the James K. Ballinger American Art and Education Fund

2017.239

© Phoenix Art Museum. All rights reserved. Photo by Mike Lundgren.

American and Western American

No

In 1908, Marguerite Zorach sailed to Paris to study art and discovered the bold colors and expressionistic brushstrokes of Henri Matisse and his fellow Fauves. This informal group of French painters earned their name from a critic who described them as “wild beasts.” It was an exciting period of change for American artists, few of whom painted in such a strongly Fauvist style as Zorach. The intense colors of Deer in the Forest and its dynamic composition put her at the forefront of American modernism. This work also captures her belief that “it does not take a big canvas to express a big idea.”