Charles Demuth was an American painter who specialized in watercolors and turned to oils late in his career, developing a style of painting known as Precisionism. Demuth trained under Thomas Anshutz and William Merritt Chase at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. Between 1907 and 1913 Demuth made several trips to Europe to study, and while in Paris he was drawn to the work of Marcel Duchamp and the Cubists, influences that lasted throughout his career. After returning to the United States, he illustrated works by several of his favorite authors. He gradually moved away from illustrative art and created a series of watercolors of flowers, circuses, and café scenes that placed him in the top-ranking watercolorists of his period. Late in his career, Demuth began to paint advertisements and billboards into his cityscapes with the bold commercial lettering complimenting the hard edged abstraction of the buildings.
