[Davis Painting] In the 1960s Gene Davis became a leader of the Washington Color School, a group of Washington, D.C., painters who created abstract compositions in acrylic colors on unprimed canvas.

Hot Beat exemplifies Davis' equal-width stripe paintings. In these works, Davis experimented with complex color schemes that lent themselves to sustained periods of viewing. Davis suggested that a viewer should "select a specific color . . . and take the time to see how it operates across the painting."

Courtesy of the National Museum of American Art, gift of the Woodward Foundation.

Hot Beat, 1964, by Gene Davis (1920-85), acrylic on canvas

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