Rapt at Rappaport's 1952

Stuart Davis created ‘Rapt at Rappaport’s’ using screenprint, and it pulses with the energy of modern life. Davis, like many artists of his generation, sought a visual language to capture the accelerating pace of urban experience in the United States. This print, with its flattened planes of color, bold shapes, and fragmented typography, reflects an interest in advertising and the visual cacophony of city streets. Made in the mid-20th century, after the Second World War, it suggests an embrace of consumer culture. Davis pulls from the aesthetics of commercial design, nodding to the increasing dominance of mass media. It suggests that the spaces of commerce are now where we find ourselves most stimulated and, indeed, ‘rapt.’ Historians of art and culture use sources like period advertisements, urban planning documents, and sociological studies to understand how artists like Davis responded to a changing world. We see here how art reflects and shapes our understanding of social and institutional transformations.