No one knows exactly when or where jazz arrived. In its early days, the genre wasn’t even called jazz. It was probably known as barrelhouse or ragtime in 1907, when Stuart Davis and his friends explored the bars of Newark, New Jersey, looking for the softly progressive scene.
Back then, there were no jazz records. So how did these high school students discover the music?
“We were hip to the jive,” explained Davis.
And there you have him. The unique timbre of jazz shaped both his lexicon and his art. Why wouldn’t it? The musicians Davis admired didn’t perform solely for the money. They also played for the sheer fun of it.
Stuart Davis took his fun seriously
Davis dropped out of high school in 1909 to study with Robert Henri, a trailblazing art instructor who urged his students to choose subjects that reflected their unvarnished experiences in New York City.
Several years later, Davis became one of the youngest artists featured in the 1913 International Exhibition of Modern Art—popularly known as the Armory Show. He submitted five canvases that showcased the urban realism of the American Ashcan School.
The Armory Show was the greatest shock to me. Today it’s difficult to visualize the impact of this gigantic exhibition. Only isolated examples of European modernism had been seen before in America.
I responded immediately to Van Gogh, Gauguin, and Matisse. I didn’t wonder, “What in the hell is this?” I thought, “That’s it!” I resolved to become a modern artist. Eventually, I could paint a green tree red without batting an eye.
Stuart Davis, Archives of American Art interview, 1962
After the Armory Show, Davis pivoted from urban realism to modernism but American art collectors did not pivot with him. When the stock market crashed in 1929, he was nearly penniless.
The Works Project Administration (WPA)
Help arrived in the form of a New Deal initiative known as the WPA Federal Art Project. This government program hired Davis to create murals for radio station WNYC and Radio City Music Hall.
Davis’s Mural for Studio B, WNYC is a vibrant mix of flattened shapes that may (or may not) depict a music note, a saxophone, a clarinet, a radio antenna, and ether waves. Everything is drawn imaginatively, rather than realistically, to create a certain vibe.
A wall mural is seen over and over again. If it simply tells a story, such as who discovered the radio wave, then once learned, the spectator loses interest and has no reason to look at the mural again.
Stuart Davis, in his working notes for the Studio B mural, 1939
For Radio City, Davis created a tour de force of machismo called Men Without Women. Although he hated the title and had misgivings about the location, it was still a chance to introduce his work to the public—even though the mural was in the men’s smoking lounge.
(R) Stuart Davis, Colors of Spring in the Harbor (1939)
When his government funding ended in 1939, Davis was once again free to choose his own subjects. He wasted no time setting out “to capture the beauty to be found in the everyday things in our environment.”
By this, he meant the Massachusetts coastline where he had spent many happy summers, not the rat-infested apartment near Seventh Avenue and 13th Street where he was struggling with alcohol addiction.
Reinspired by jazz
At this critical moment in his career, Davis turned to jazz for inspiration. For six years he worked on The Mellow Pad, the pictorial equivalent of rhythm and syncopation.
I was learning things and doing things I hadn’t done before. I don’t like to use the word trouble, but if you want to be factual I did have a little trouble with it. The important thing is that I kept at it until all the trouble disappeared.
Stuart Davis, Archives of American Art interview, 1962
The Mellow Pad is a masterful orchestration of vibrant colors and sharp lines. In jazz terms, the high-key colors are his tone—the sound of his artistic voice. The two-dimensional shapes are his harmonic structure—his unique compositional signature.
Historians usually interpret the title The Mellow Pad to mean a laid-back place. Davis shrugged off the idea and for a good reason.
A sordid past
The word pad emerged in 17th-century Britain as slang for a criminal hideout. It maintained its shady reputation until the 1960s, when hippies adopted it to describe a “chill” environment free of illicit associations.
I believe Davis used the word the same way musicians do: a pad is a harmonic background. It consists of sustained notes and chord progressions that bind instruments together and enrich a song’s texture.
When I digitally remove the background “pad” from Davis’s painting, the remaining elements become discordant. They clash. They really do need a unifying anchor. With the right pad, the lines and loops in the foreground suddenly appear to improvise and groove.
(right) A page from Davis’s working notes
Drawing from my own experience, I know how challenging it can be to find the right pad for a melody. Similarly, Davis struggled with it. He dubbed the upper left corner of the canvas “Hell’s Corner” because he reworked it so many times.
Despite these creative obstacles, Davis ultimately invented an all-over painting style that still feels fresh and alive. Today he is celebrated as one of the most innovative American modernists of his generation.
What does “The Mellow Pad” sound like?
Can a jazz band truly transform the colors, lines, and layers of a Stuart Davis masterpiece into live music? Here is a rare opportunity to find out.
Simply click on this photo to hear Wynton Marsalis and The Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra perform their uptown version of Stuart Davis for the Masses: The Mellow Pad. (Sound up)
Postscript: If you happen to be in Austin…
See “Art in Every Corner: The Works Progress Administration” at the Blanton Museum of Art now thru September 27, 2026. Drawings and paintings by Stuart Davis and other notable WPA artists illuminate the lives of Americans during the Great Depression.