Elsie Driggs
Aeroplane

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Artist Elsie DriggsAmerican, 1898–1992

CultureAmerican

Titles

Aeroplane

Date1928

MediumOil on canvas

DimensionsCanvas: 44 x 38 in. (111.8 x 96.5 cm)

Credit LineMuseum purchase funded by the Brown Foundation Accessions Endowment Fund

Object number2006.297

Current Location

The Nancy and Rich Kinder Building

Gallery 206

On view

Explore Further

Department

American Art

Object Type

PAINTING

DescriptionElsie Driggs was one of the few women
associated with the Precisionist movement,
which championed the industrial and urban
forces that were transforming the American
landscape in the 1920s. Seeking to capture “the
quick and the classical,” she depicted Ford’s
Tri-Motor plane midflight, celebrating the
first aircraft to offer comfortable and reliable
customer service across the United States.
Aeroplane was featured in 1929 in Driggs’s first
solo exhibition at the prestigious Daniel
Gallery in New York.
ProvenanceArtist; Courtney Sale and Steven J. Ross, New York, 1979 - present; purchased from Meredith Long & Company, 2006

Exhibition HistoryDaniel Gallery, New York, 1929.

"Images of America, Precisionist Painting and American Photography," San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, September 9–November 7, 1982; St. Louis Art Museum, December 10, 1982–January 30, 1983; Baltimore Museum of Art, 1983; Des Moines Art Center, 1983; Cleveland Museum of Art, August 17–October 9, 1983.

"Elsie Driggs: A Woman of Genius," New Jersey State Museum, Trenton, October 31, 1990–January 6, 1991; Phillips Collection, Washington, January 26–March 17, 1991.

"Wings of Adventure: Smith Reynolds and the Flight of 898 Whiskey," Reynolda House, Museum of American Art, Winston-Salem, North Carolina, September 8–December 31, 2007.

"Youth and Beauty: Art of the American Twenties," Brooklyn Museum, October 28, 2011–January 29, 2012; Dallas Museum of Art, March 4–May 27, 2012; Cleveland Museum of Art, July 1–September 16, 2012.

“American Modern: Works from the Collection of Alice C. Simkins,” Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, April 15–July 19, 2015.

"America in Focus: Precisionism in the Machine Age," de Young Museum, San Francisco, March 24–August 12, 2018; Dallas Museum of Art, September 16, 2018–January 6, 2019.

"Georgia O'Keeffe and American Modernism," McNay Art Museum, San Antonio, January 19–December 11, 2022.
Inscriptions, Signatures and Marks

Signed recto lower right: "Elsie Driggs"

Signed verso (per Meredith Long & Company): "Driggs '28"

Printed labels on verso backboard:

"San Francisco Museum of Modern Art / Loan IMAGES OF AMERICA: PRECISIONIST PAINTING / AND MODERN PHOTOGRAPHY / September 9 - November 7, 1982 & circ. / Registration Number 17.82.50 / Artist Elsie DRIGGS / Title/Date Aeroplane 1928 / ... / Courtney Sale and Steven J. Ross, / New York"

"ADELSON GALLERIES, INC. / Elsie Driggs (1898-1992) / Aeroplane, 1928 / ... / AG 4143 / The Mark Hotel ...New York, NY... / ... "

"G 41945 / Artist Elsie Driggs (1898-1992) / Title "Aeroplane" 1928 / ... / MEREDITH LONG & COMPANY / ... HOUSTON, TEXAS ... "

Cataloguing data may change with further research.

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