Pre-WW II
North American Art

North American Art
Before the Second World War

Charles Sheeler

To get a larger version, click on the thumbnail version of a picture.

Charles Sheeler

born: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; 16 July 1883
died: Dobbs Ferry, N.Y.; 7 May 1965

American painter who is best known for his precise renderings of industrial forms in which abstract, formal qualities were emphasized.

Sheeler studied at the School of Industrial Art in Philadelphia and then at the Pennsylvania
Academy of Fine Arts. He contributed six paintings, mainly still lifes, to the New York Armory Show of 1913.

To make a living, Sheeler turned to photography about 1912. Initially he worked on assignments from Philadelphia architects. He moved to New York City in 1919 and the next year collaborated with the photographer Paul Strand on a film, Mannahatta, a study of the buildings of the city. During the early 1920s he received recognition for both his paintings and his photography. In 1927 he made an outstanding series of photographs of the Ford Motor
Company's plant at River Rouge, Mich. This assignment was followed in 1929 by a series on the Chartres cathedral, France.

One of his best-known pictures, "Upper Deck" has been acclaimed for its pristine, geometric surfaces. "Rolling Power" is another major work, which emphasizes the abstract power of the wheels of a locomotive. Sheeler also treated architectural subjects in his abstract-realist style. His later works tended toward a less literal rendering of their subjects.

Central Park	Canyons	White Sentinels 1942
American Landscape 1930	Suspended Power 1939	River Rouge Plant 1932
Fugue 1940	Converstaion Between Sky and Earth 1940	Rolling Power 1939 Art Museum, Smith College Northampton, Mass.

 

Chrysanthemums 1923	Red Tulips 1926	Cactus 1931
New Haven 1932	Home Sweet Home 1931	Interior 1926
Winter Window 1941	American Interior 1934	Stairway to the Studio 1924
Yankee Clipper 1939 Museum of Art, School of Design Providence, Rhode Island, US		Pertaining to Yachts and Yachting 1922

 

Visit the post War Sheeler Gallery with 8 more pictures.

Pre-WW II Art
North American Art