Gene Davis, Franklin’s Footpath, 1972

American painter Gene Davis was a master of stripes, famously rendering them vertically in acrylic paint in a variety of different colours. A member of the abstract painting collective the Washington Color School, Davis usually worked on canvas, but occasionally he took his linear larks to the streets. This vast artwork, made in 1972 and dubbed Franklin’s Footpath, adorned the road leading up to the Philadelphia Museum of Art. The painting was the world’s largest at the time of its creation and served as a particularly playful pathway for visitors to enjoy as they made their way to the gallery.