Art, literature & historySaw
1923
- Dating
- Exact year
- Held at
- Art Institute of Chicago
- Medium
- Oil on canvas
- Dimensions
- 94 × 55.9 cm (37 × 22 in.)
- Collection no.
- 1988.144
- Attribution
- By the artist
Collection: Art Institute of Chicago
About this artwork
Saw — Stuart Davis. 1923.
Medium: Oil on canvas. Dimensions: 94 × 55.9 cm (37 × 22 in.).
Collection record: Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago. Museum connection according to this source; current display unverified.
In this painting, Stuart Davis presented the saw as a modern icon for the 20th century. It is one of a series of paintings of solitary objects he produced in the 1920s. Here the tool floats in a Cubist composition of flat, abstract planes. The elevation of mundane objects to artistic subjects appealed to modernists like Davis because it signaled a new means of working that was free of art historical associations.
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.