In 1908 Manierre Dawson, a 21-year-old Chicagoan, an artist in his spare time, began to paint in a style that differed dramatically from what he had done before. It differed dramatically from what anybody in America had done before. Dawson painted not seascapes or horsemen or ladies with parasols; not even streetwalkers or soot-blackened skylines. His new "subjects" were shapes and colors, complex forms and even numerals floating in space.