Art, literature & historyTelegraph Pole
1929
- Dating
- Exact year
- Held at
- Art Institute of Chicago
- Medium
- Oil, metallic paint, and pencil on steel plate
- Dimensions
- 71.1 × 50.5 cm (28 × 19 7/8 in.)
- Collection no.
- 1949.535
- Attribution
- By the artist
Collection: Art Institute of Chicago
About this artwork
Telegraph Pole — Arthur Dove. 1929.
Medium: Oil, metallic paint, and pencil on steel plate. Dimensions: 71.1 × 50.5 cm (28 × 19 7/8 in.).
Collection record: Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago. Museum connection according to this source; current display unverified.
“Being a wet telegraph pole, some flying leaves and silver.” This is how Arthur Dove briefly described this painting, which juxtaposes the geometry of the pole in the extreme foreground against the curves of distant hills. Dove evoked the wetness of the scene by employing metallic paint on a steel plate; these unconventional materials makes the entire composition shimmer and shine. The varied brushwork and pulsating layers of color in the background further enliven the work’s appearance, suggesting that this industrial object has been subsumed into its natural setting.
Description: © Art Institute of Chicago, original record, CC BY 4.0. HTML formatting removed; wording retained. Other artwork metadata: CC0.
Source: official collection record. Metadata selected and normalized by Artline from the source export, accessed 10 September 2026; no museum endorsement. Reproduction rights are separate.
Location checked Sep 10, 2026. This does not indicate whether the work is on display.