Best known as a major literary figure from the 1920s through the 1940s with such books as "Three Soldiers" and "Manhattan Transfer," John Dos Passos pursued a concurrent career as a visual artist. The University of Virginia Art Museum will show more than 80 watercolors and drawings of landscapes and portraits that speak to the diverse cultures he encountered on his travels.
These include works from a trip to Spain immediately after his discharge from the U.S. Army in 1920, his return to Paris and trips to Morocco in the mid-1920s and to Mexico from 1926 to 1934. Also on view will be paintings he exhibited in New York City in the 1920s chronicling his travels as a social revolutionary throughout the Americas, Europe, and the Middle East. A number of the watercolors he made during these trips and while living in New York are shown as cover art, and, as in the case of the "Orient Express," as illustrations in his books. Included in the exhibition are Dos Passos's designs for productions presented by the New Playwrights Theater in New York, a proletarian dramatist group.
"The Art of John Dos Passos" was organized by International Arts &
Artists in conjunction with the Dos Passos estate. Its presentation at
the University of Virginia Art Museum is supported in part by the Museum's
John Dos Passos, Moon is a Gong, ca. 1925-27
Gouache on cardboard, 11 x 15 1/4", Private Collection