Arthur Dove, born Canandaigua, NY - Oil Tanker II - 1932 - T-Shirt

A red-hulled vessel fills the foreground of this 1932 watercolour and charcoal study, its cabin and rigging reduced to bold colour and quick line.

Visual Elements & Composition

Brick red dominates the centre, where a boxy deckhouse rises above a dark hull and a curved, shadowed deck. A tall mast runs vertically through the middle, crossed by diagonal boom lines and taut rigging in the upper right. Behind the ship, a yellow-green shore, a small building with a dark window and a few feathery green trees sit under a soft pink-grey sky. Charcoal contour lines define each form, and loose washes of colour are laid over them without filling every edge. A signature appears in the lower right corner.

Meaning & Symbolism

Dove, born in Canandaigua, New York, became a pioneer of American abstraction, and his work of the early 1930s drew heavily on boats, water and the waterfront. This sheet, dated 1932, belongs to that group of marine studies. The title identifies the subject as an oil tanker, and the warm red mass of the ship against the cool, pale ground sets industry against an open landscape. Dove treats the working vessel as a presence in its harbour, where shape and tackle matter more than the setting.

On the T-Shirt

Dove drew this vessel at close range, and the print keeps that nearness. Across the chest, the ship sits at the centre of the shirt as a single, bold figure, while the rigging and shore stay readable as you move. The loose, hand-drawn line of the original sheet carries through, with the charcoal under-drawing still visible beneath the colour.