Arthur B. Davies (1862, Utica, NY – 1928, Florence, Italy) was an American painter and printmaker known for his efforts to popularize Modernism in the United States. Along with his contemporaries who constituted an artist coalition called ‘The Eight,’ Davies orchestrated the watershed Armory Show in 1913, which was many Americans’ introduction to emerging art movements in Europe like Impressionism, Fauvism, and Cubism. The title, Cartoon, indicates that this work was likely a sketch for a mural featuring many of Davies’ signature motifs, like dancing balletic figures in a rhythmic horizontal composition. Davies’ works are in the permanent collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY; Brooklyn Museum, NY; Los Angeles County Museum of Art, CA; Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, DC; and the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, among others.