The Blue Platter

Knaths’s reputation was at its height when Muriel Steinberg bought this painting in 1952. He had recently won honors from The Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Art Institute of Chicago, and collectors such as Duncan Phillips bought his work extensively. Knaths was considered to be the most accomplished American exponent of the painterly style developed in Paris by artists from Bonnard to Matisse. By the 1960s, however, his work was considered out-of-touch with new developments. Knaths lived and worked in Provincetown, Mass. Though seemingly improvisational, his paintings are strictly controlled. He always chose his colors from a chart in advance and used mathematical formulas to determine his compositions. He observed that “systems are a way of getting the material in orderly arrangement in your mind, I guess, and the pictures come out in spite of the system.”