Amon Carter print details
An abstract oil painting of curved and geometric shapes in bright green, blue, red, and yellow.
An abstract oil painting of curved and geometric shapes in bright green, blue, red, and yellow.

Figure

Morton Livingston Schamberg (1881-1918)

Object Details

  • Date

    1913

  • Object Type

    Paintings

  • Medium

    Oil on canvas

  • Dimensions

    32 1/4 x 26 1/8 in.

  • Inscriptions

    Recto:

    signed and dated u.r.: Schamberg \ 1913

  • Credit Line

    Amon Carter Museum of American Art, Fort Worth, Texas

  • Accession Number

    1984.16

  • Copyright

    Public domain

Object Description

Schamberg’s career was brief—he died at 36 from influenza during the 1918 pandemic—but he left a legacy of open-minded experimentation and innovation. After starting out as an impressionist painter in Philadelphia, he pivoted to embrace avant-garde practices that were emerging in Europe. He turned to cubism after visiting Paris in 1908, and in 1913 he executed several brightly colored compositions based on non-representational forms.

Built up from interlocking planes of saturated color, these works, which include Figure, are some of the first abstract paintings made by an American artist. Schamberg’s foray into abstraction was short-lived, however. During World War I he gave up this approach, believing that such colorful, optimistic imagery was no longer appropriate to an era of such profound loss and destruction.

—Text taken from the Carter Handbook (2023)

Additional details

Location: On view
W28-artist-CMYK-CarterBlack
See more by Morton Livingston Schamberg

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Educator Resources

  • Why might the human figure take such an important place in art history? How has the human figure been portrayed differently throughout history?

    What influence might teachers and friends have on the ideas and work an artist produces?

    What are some stylistic identifiers of modernism and American modernism in art?

  • Grades 1–5

    Using a printed reproduction of this work, have students apply school glue to the outlines of each shape and allow it to dry. What areas do they think are figure? What areas are background? Have students “feel” the edges of the shapes that make up the figures. Then ask them to physically adopt the posture that they think the figure has taken. Ask students to color only what they think is the figure. Compare student work in small groups.

    Grades 5–8

    Choose a realistic image of a human figure or ask a student to pose. Ask students to reduce the figure to simple, two-dimensional shapes and to apply color in a way that makes the figure distinguishable from the background.

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