What Inspires You? I Saw The Figure 5 in Gold

Charles Demuth: I Saw the Figure 5 in Gold (1928)

I Saw the Figure 5 in Gold, by Charles Demuth, was an exuberant response to a poem by William Carlos Williams, who was trying to establish an American modernism.

Williams had dedicated Spring and All to the artist in 1923. The volume presented an authoritative version of the voice he sought to achieve. At the time, both men were trying to establish a new iconography, as expressed in the poem “The Great Figure”.

The work is one of nine poster portraits Demuth created to honor his creative friends.  He painted posters devoted to artists Georgia O’Keeffe, Arthur Dove, Charles Duncan, Marsden Hartley, John Marin, and other writers than Williams.

Charles Demuth: The Jazz Singer (1916)

Among the rain and lights I saw the figure 5 in gold on a red firetruck moving tense unheeded to gong clangs siren howls and wheels rumblings

through the dark city~William Carlos Williams