Hotel 1921

Charles Demuth created this watercolor titled, "Hotel," during a period of immense social and artistic change. Demuth was part of the Precisionist movement, which celebrated the new American landscape of skyscrapers and factories. But here, he gives us something else, a deconstructed facade in warm hues where architectural forms blend with commercial signage. This blurring hints at the fluid boundaries of identity and experience in a rapidly modernizing world. As a gay man living in the early 20th century, Demuth navigated the rigid social norms of his time. His artistic expression became a space to explore hidden desires and critique societal constraints, and there is something alluring about the way in which he has abstracted this urban space. "Art," he once said, "should be as personal as a landscape." Here the urban landscape mirrors the artist’s own personal negotiation between visibility and concealment. Demuth uses abstraction not just as an aesthetic choice, but as a way to explore the complexities of identity and lived experience.