This volume presents the first scholarly consideration of Morris Davidson (1898--1979), an influential painter and educator whose work has been neglected in the art history of mid-twentieth-century American painting. Davidson studied at the Art Institute of Chicago, with painters in Provincetown, Massachusetts, and eventually in Paris. He became a leader in the cause of abstract painting through his teaching in New York City and Provincetown, his influential books -- Understanding Modern Art (1931) and An Approach to Modern Painting (1948) -- and his own widely exhibited work. Two essays address Davidson's place in New York and in Provincetown, a memoir of his Cape Cod art school and studio captures his private world, and a catalog of twenty-five exemplary works illuminates his varied production.