Charles Sheeler (July 16, 1883 – May 7, 1965) was an American artist known for his Precisionist paintings, commercial photography, and the 1921 avant-garde film, '' Manhatta'', which he made in collaboration with Paul Strand. Sheeler is recognized as one of the early adopters of modernism in

American art Visual art of the United States or American art is visual art made in the United States or by U.S. artists. Before colonization, there were many flourishing traditions of Native American art, and where the Spanish colonized Spanish Colonial arc ...

Early life and career

Charles Rettew Sheeler Jr. was born in

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Philadelphia ( ), colloquially referred to as Philly, is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania, most populous city in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania and the List of United States cities by population, sixth-most populous city in the Unit ...

. He attended the Pennsylvania Museum School of Industrial Art from 1900 to 1903, and then the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, where he studied under William Merritt Chase. He found early success as a painter and exhibited at the Macbeth Gallery in 1908. Most of his education was in drawing and other applied arts. He went to Italy with other students, where he was intrigued by the Italian painters of the Middle Ages, such as Giotto and Piero della Francesca. After a trip to Paris in 1909, Sheeler was inspired by works of Cubist artists like

Pablo Picasso Pablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno María de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santísima Trinidad Ruiz y Picasso (25 October 1881 – 8 April 1973) was a Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker, Ceramic art, ceramicist, and Scenic ...

and

Georges Braque Georges Braque ( ; ; 13 May 1882 – 31 August 1963) was a major 20th-century List of French artists, French painter, Collage, collagist, Drawing, draughtsman, printmaker and sculptor. His most notable contributions were in his alliance with ...

. Returning to the United States, Sheeler felt that he would not be able to make a living as a

modernist Modernism was an early 20th-century movement in literature, visual arts, and music that emphasized experimentation, abstraction, and Subjectivity and objectivity (philosophy), subjective experience. Philosophy, politics, architecture, and soc ...

painter, so he took up commercial photography, focusing on architectural subjects. Sheeler was a self-taught photographer, learning his trade on a five dollar Brownie. Early in his career, he was greatly impacted by the death of his close friend Morton Livingston Schamberg during the influenza epidemic of 1918. Schamberg's painting had focused heavily on machinery and technology, a theme that featured prominently in Sheeler's own work. Sheeler owned a farmhouse in

Doylestown, Pennsylvania Doylestown is a borough (Pennsylvania), borough in and the county seat of Bucks County, Pennsylvania, United States. As of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, the borough population was 8,300. Doylestown is located northwest of Trent ...

, about 39 miles outside Philadelphia, which he shared with Schamberg until the latter's death. He was so fond of the home's 19th century stove that he called it his "companion" and made it a subject of his photographs. The farmhouse itself serves a prominent role in many of his photographs, which include shots of the bedroom, kitchen, and stairway. At one point he was quoted as calling it his "cloister." His work was also part of the painting event in the art competition at the

1932 Summer Olympics The 1932 Summer Olympics (officially the Games of the X Olympiad and also known as Los Angeles 1932) were an international multi-sport event held from July 30 to August 14, 1932, in Los Angeles, California, United States. The Games were held du ...

. On April 2, 1939, Sheeler married Musya Metas Sokolova, his second wife, six years after the death in 1933 of first wife Katharine Baird Shaffer (married April 7, 1921). In 1942, Sheeler joined the

Metropolitan Museum of Art The Metropolitan Museum of Art, colloquially referred to as the Met, is an Encyclopedic museum, encyclopedic art museum in New York City. By floor area, it is the List of largest museums, third-largest museum in the world and the List of larg ...

as a senior research fellow in photography, worked on a project in Connecticut with the photographer Edward Weston, and moved with Musya to Irvington-on-Hudson, some twenty miles north of New York. Sheeler worked for the Metropolitan Museum's Department of Publications from 1942 to 1945, photographing artworks and historical objects. Sheeler painted in a Precisionist style that complemented his photography and has been described as "quasi-photographic".

''Manhatta''

In 1920, Sheeler invited photographer Paul Strand to collaborate on a "portrait" of Manhattan in film. The resulting 35mm nine-minute series of vignettes, called '' Manhatta'' after

Walt Whitman Walter Whitman Jr. (; May 31, 1819 – March 26, 1892) was an American poet, essayist, and journalist; he also wrote two novels. He is considered one of the most influential poets in American literature and world literature. Whitman incor ...

's poem, ''Mannahatta'', was the first avant-garde film created in America. In 1995 the film was selected for preservation in the

National Film Registry The National Film Registry (NFR) is the United States National Film Preservation Board's (NFPB) collection of films selected for preservation (library and archival science), preservation, each selected for its cultural, historical, and aestheti ...

by the

Library of Congress The Library of Congress (LOC) is a research library in Washington, D.C., serving as the library and research service for the United States Congress and the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It also administers Copyright law o ...

, being deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".

Work with General Motors and Ford Motor Company

His work is featured at the General Motors Technical Center in Warren Michigan. He was hired by the

Ford Motor Company Ford Motor Company (commonly known as Ford) is an American multinational corporation, multinational automobile manufacturer headquartered in Dearborn, Michigan, United States. It was founded by Henry Ford and incorporated on June 16, 1903. T ...

to photograph and make paintings of their factories.

Photography and film work

Films created by Charles Sheeler

*192
''Manhatta''
(with Paul Strand)]

Photographic works

*191
''Doylestown House: Stairs from Below''
(Metropolitan Museum of Art) *192
''Criss-Crossed Conveyors, River Rouge Plant, Ford Motor Company''
(Metropolitan Museum of Art)
1928 Images from ''Vogue'' and ''Vanity Fair''

Selected paintings

Early works

*

' (1920) – The Cleveland Museum of Art,

Cleveland Cleveland is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Cuyahoga County. Located along the southern shore of Lake Erie, it is situated across the Canada–U.S. maritime border and approximately west of the Ohio-Pennsylvania st ...

*
Still Life
' (1925) – M. H. de Young Memorial Museum,

San Francisco San Francisco, officially the City and County of San Francisco, is a commercial, Financial District, San Francisco, financial, and Culture of San Francisco, cultural center of Northern California. With a population of 827,526 residents as of ...

*
Lady of the Sixties
' (1925) –

Boston Museum of Fine Arts Boston is the capital and most populous city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Massachusetts in the United States. The city serves as the cultural and Financial centre, financial center of New England, a region of the Northeas ...

Boston Boston is the capital and most populous city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Massachusetts in the United States. The city serves as the cultural and Financial centre, financial center of New England, a region of the Northeas ...

*
Upper Deck
' (1928–1929) – Harvard Art Museum,

Cambridge, MA Cambridge ( ) is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. It is a suburb in the Greater Boston metropolitan area, located directly across the Charles River from Boston. The city's population as of the 2020 U.S. census was 118, ...

*
American Landscape
' (1930) –

Museum of Modern Art The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street (Manhattan), 53rd Street between Fifth Avenue, Fifth and Sixth Avenues. MoMA's collection spans the late 19th century to the present, a ...

New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...

*
Americana
' (1931) –

*
Classic Landscape
' (1931) – Barney A. Ebsworth collection *

' (1931) –

*
Interior with Stove
' (1932) –

National Gallery of Art The National Gallery of Art is an art museum in Washington, D.C., United States, located on the National Mall, between 3rd and 9th Streets, at Constitution Avenue NW. Open to the public and free of charge, the museum was privately established in ...

Washington, D.C. Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly known as Washington or D.C., is the capital city and federal district of the United States. The city is on the Potomac River, across from Virginia, and shares land borders with ...

*
River Rouge Plant
' (1933) –

Whitney Museum of American Art The Whitney Museum of American Art, known informally as "The Whitney", is a Modern art, modern and Contemporary art, contemporary American art museum located in the Meatpacking District, Manhattan, Meatpacking District and West Village neighbor ...

*
American Interior
' (1934) – Yale University Gallery,

New Haven New Haven is a city of the U.S. state of Connecticut. It is located on New Haven Harbor on the northern shore of Long Island Sound. With a population of 135,081 as determined by the 2020 U.S. census, New Haven is the third largest city in Co ...

*
Ephrata
' (1934) – D'Amour Museum of Fine Arts, Springfield, MA *
City Interior
' (1936) –

Worcester Art Museum The Worcester Art Museum houses over 38,000 works of art dating from antiquity to the present day and representing cultures from all over the world. The museum opened in 1898 in Worcester, Massachusetts. Its holdings include Roman mosaics, Europe ...

, Worcester

Power series

In 1940, '' Fortune Magazine'' published a series of six paintings commissioned of Sheeler. To prepare for the series, Sheeler spent a year traveling and taking photographs. ''Fortune'' editors aimed to “reflect life through forms …

hat A hat is a Headgear, head covering which is worn for various reasons, including protection against weather conditions, ceremonial reasons such as university graduation, religious reasons, safety, or as a fashion accessory. Hats which incorpor ...

trace the firm pattern of the human mind,” and Sheeler chose six subjects to fulfill this theme: a

water wheel A water wheel is a machine for converting the kinetic energy of flowing or falling water into useful forms of power, often in a watermill. A water wheel consists of a large wheel (usually constructed from wood or metal), with numerous b ...

(''Primitive Power''), a

steam turbine A steam turbine or steam turbine engine is a machine or heat engine that extracts thermal energy from pressurized steam and uses it to do mechanical work utilising a rotating output shaft. Its modern manifestation was invented by Sir Charles Par ...

(''Steam Turbine''), the

railroad Rail transport (also known as train transport) is a means of transport using wheeled vehicles running in railway track, tracks, which usually consist of two parallel steel railway track, rails. Rail transport is one of the two primary means of ...

(''Rolling Power''), a hydroelectric turbine (''Suspended Power''), an

airplane An airplane (American English), or aeroplane (Commonwealth English), informally plane, is a fixed-wing aircraft that is propelled forward by thrust from a jet engine, Propeller (aircraft), propeller, or rocket engine. Airplanes come in a vari ...

(''Yankee Clipper'') and a

dam A dam is a barrier that stops or restricts the flow of surface water or underground streams. Reservoirs created by dams not only suppress floods but also provide water for activities such as irrigation, human consumption, industrial use, aqua ...

(''Conversation: Sky and Earth'') . * ''Conversation: Sky and Earth'' (1939) – Amon Carter Museum of American Art,

Fort Worth Fort Worth is a city in the U.S. state of Texas and the county seat of Tarrant County, Texas, Tarrant County, covering nearly into Denton County, Texas, Denton, Johnson County, Texas, Johnson, Parker County, Texas, Parker, and Wise County, Te ...

* ''Primitive Power'' (1939) – The Regis Collection,

Minneapolis Minneapolis is a city in Hennepin County, Minnesota, United States, and its county seat. With a population of 429,954 as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, it is the state's List of cities in Minnesota, most populous city. Locat ...

*
Rolling Power
' (1939) –

Smith College Smith College is a Private university, private Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts Women's colleges in the United States, women's college in Northampton, Massachusetts, United States. It was chartered in 1871 by Sophia Smit ...

Northampton Northampton ( ) is a town and civil parish in Northamptonshire, England. It is the county town of Northamptonshire and the administrative centre of the Unitary authorities of England, unitary authority of West Northamptonshire. The town is sit ...

*
Steam Turbine
' (1939) – Butler Institute of American Art,

Youngstown Youngstown is a city in Mahoning County, Ohio, United States, and its county seat. It is the List of municipalities in Ohio, 11th-most populous city in Ohio with a population of 60,068 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census. The Mahoning ...

*
Suspended Power
' (1939) – Dallas Museum of Art,

Dallas Dallas () is a city in the U.S. state of Texas and the most populous city in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex, the List of Texas metropolitan areas, most populous metropolitan area in Texas and the Metropolitan statistical area, fourth-most ...

*
Yankee Clipper
' (1939) –

Rhode Island School of Design The Rhode Island School of Design (RISD , pronounced "Riz-D") is a private art and design school in Providence, Rhode Island. The school was founded as a coeducational institution in 1877 by Helen Adelia Rowe Metcalf, who sought to increase th ...

, Providence

Later works

*
Interior
' (1940) –

*
Fugue
' (1940) –

*
Bucks County Barn
' (1940) – Terra Foundation for American Art,

Chicago Chicago is the List of municipalities in Illinois, most populous city in the U.S. state of Illinois and in the Midwestern United States. With a population of 2,746,388, as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, it is the List of Unite ...

*
The Artist Looks at Nature
' (1943) –

Art Institute of Chicago The Art Institute of Chicago, founded in 1879, is one of the oldest and largest art museums in the United States. The museum is based in the Art Institute of Chicago Building in Chicago's Grant Park (Chicago), Grant Park. Its collection, stewa ...

*
Water
' (1945) –

, New York *
Incantation
' (1946) –

Brooklyn Museum The Brooklyn Museum is an art museum in the New York City borough (New York City), borough of Brooklyn. At , the museum is New York City's second largest and contains an art collection with around 500,000 objects. Located near the Prospect Heig ...

Brooklyn Brooklyn is a Boroughs of New York City, borough of New York City located at the westernmost end of Long Island in the New York (state), State of New York. Formerly an independent city, the borough is coextensive with Kings County, one of twelv ...

*
Amoskeag Canal
' (1948) – Currier Museum of Art,

Manchester Manchester () is a city and the metropolitan borough of Greater Manchester, England. It had an estimated population of in . Greater Manchester is the third-most populous metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, with a population of 2.92&nbs ...

*
Windows
' (1952) – Hirschl & Adler Galleries,

*
Conversation Piece
' (1952) – Reynolda House Museum of American Art, Winston-Salem *
Aerial Gyrations
' (1953) – San Francisco Museum of Modern Art,

*
New England Irrelevancies
' (1953) –

*
Ore Into Iron
' (1953) –

*
Stacks in Celebration
' (1954) –

Dayton Art Institute The Dayton Art Institute (DAI) is a museum of fine arts in Dayton, Ohio, Dayton, Ohio, United States. The Dayton Art Institute has been rated one of the top 10 best art museums in the United States for children. The museum also ranks in the top 3% ...

Dayton Dayton () is a city in Montgomery County, Ohio, United States, and its county seat. It is the List of cities in Ohio, sixth-most populous city in Ohio, with a population of 137,644 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census. The Dayton metro ...

*
Architectural Cadences Number 4
' (1954) – Amon Carter Museum of American Art,

* ''Lunenburg'' (1954) –

*
Midwest
' (1954) –

Walker Art Center The Walker Art Center is a multidisciplinary contemporary art center in the Lowry Hill, Minneapolis, Lowry Hill neighborhood of Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States. The Walker is one of the most-visited modern and contemporary art museums in ...

*
Golden Gate
' (1955) –

*
Western Industrial
' (1955) –

*
The Web
' (1955) – Neuberger Museum of Art, Purchase, NY *
On a Shaker Theme
' (1956) –

*
Red Against White
' (1957) –

* ''Composition Around White'' (1959) – Collection of Deborah and Ed Shein

Exhibitions

* "Charles Sheeler: Paintings, Drawings, Photographs" –

, New York, October 4 – November 1, 1939.. * "Paintings by Charles Sheeler" –

, Dayton, Ohio, November 2 – December 2, 1944. * "Charles Sheeler: A Retrospective Exhibition" – Art Galleries,

University of California at Los Angeles The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California, United States. Its academic roots were established in 1881 as a normal school then known as the southern branch of the Ca ...

, October 11 – November 7, 1954. Toured November 18 – June 15, 1955 at the M. H. de Young Memorial Museum, San Francisco; Fine Arts Gallery of San Diego; and Fort Worth Art Center, Fort Worth, Texas; Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia; Munson-Williams Proctor Institute, Utica, New York. * "Charles Sheeler Retrospective Exhibition" – Allentown Art Museum, Allentown, Pennsylvania, November 17 – December 31, 1961. * "Charles Sheeler Retrospective Exhibition" - March 17 – April 14, 1963 - State University of Iowa, Department of Art. * "Charles Sheeler" – National Collection of Fine Arts, Washington, DC, October 10 – November 24, 1968. Toured January 10 – April 27, 1969 at the

Philadelphia Museum of Art The Philadelphia Museum of Art (PMA) is an List of art museums#North America, art museum originally chartered in 1876 for the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia. The main museum building was completed in 1928 on Fairmount, a hill located at ...

, and the

, New York. * "Charles Sheeler: The Works on Paper" - Museum of Art, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA, February 10 – March 24, 1974; Terry Dintenfass, Incorporated, 18 East 67 Street, New York, NY, April 2–20, 1974. 62 works on paper. An exhibition organized at the Pennsylvania State University; catalogue and selection by John P. Driscoll; catalogue foreword, Wm. Hull, Director, Museum of Art, The Pennsylvania State University; 81 pages. "Charles Sheeler: The Works on Paper", Museum of Art, The Pennsylvania State University, 1974. * "Charles Sheeler: Across Media" –

, Washington, DC, May 7 – August 27, 2006. Toured at the

, October 7, 2006 – January 7, 2007; and the M. H. de Young Memorial Museum, February 10 – May 6, 2007. 50 works included, including paintings, photographs, works on paper, and a film. * "The Photography of Charles Sheeler" –

Museum of Fine Arts, Boston The Museum of Fine Arts (often abbreviated as MFA Boston or MFA) is an art museum in Boston, Massachusetts. It is the list of largest art museums, 20th-largest art museum in the world, measured by public gallery area. It contains 8,161 painting ...

. Toured at the

, New York, June 3 – August 17, 2003; the

Detroit Institute of Arts The Detroit Institute of Arts (DIA) is a museum institution located in Midtown Detroit, Michigan. It has list of largest art museums, one of the largest and most significant art collections in the United States. With over 100 galleries, it cove ...

; and the Georgia O'Keeffe Museum. Nearly 100 works, including 90 photographs.
"Charles Sheeler: Fashion, Photography, and Sculptural Form", Curated by Kirsten M. Jensen, Ph.D., Gerry & Marguerite Lenfest, Chief Curator, James A. Michener Art Museum, March 18-July 9, 2017.

Gallery

Paintings

File:Dahlias and asters, 1912.jpg , ''Dahlias and asters'', 1912 File:Chrysanthemums 1912 sheeler.jpg , ''Chrysanthemums'', 1912 File:Landscape, 1913.jpg , 1913 File:Lhasa,1916.jpg , ''Lhasa'',1916 File:Barn by Charles Sheeler.jpg , ''Barn'', 1917. Conté crayon on paper File:Skyscrapers Sheeler 1922.jpg , ''Skyscrapers'', 1922 File:Pertaining to Yachts and Yachting.jpg , ''Pertaining to Yachts and Yachting'', 1922 File:Gladioli in White Pitcher - Charles Sheeler.jpg , ''Gladioli in White Pitcher'', 1926

Photographs

File:Side of White Barn, Bucks County, Pennsylvania, by Charles Sheeler, 1915.jpg , ''Side of White Barn, Bucks County, Pennsylvania'', 1915 File:Bucks County Barn, by Charles Sheeler.jpg , ''Bucks County Barn'', 1914-1917 File:Portrait of Marcel Duchamp by Baroness Freytag-Lohringhoven Charles Sheeler.jpg , ''Portrait of Marcel Duchamp by Baroness Freytag-Lohringhoven'', 1922 File:Criss-Crossed Conveyors, River Rouge Plant, Ford Motor Company.jpg , ''Criss-Crossed Conveyors, River Rouge Plant'', Ford Motor Company, 1927 File:Bleeder Stacks, Ford Plant, Detroit, by Charles Sheeler, 1927.jpg , ''Bleeder Stacks, Ford Plant, Detroit'', 1927 File:Ford Plant, River Rouge, Blast Furnace and Dust Catcher, by Charles Sheeler.jpg , ''Ford Plant, River Rouge, Blast Furnace and Dust Catcher'', 1927

Notes

"Power: A portfolio by Charles Sheeler", ''Fortune'' magazine (December 1940) Time Inc., Volume XXII, Number 6

References

External links

Oral history interview with Charles Sheeler, 1958 Dec. 9, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian InstitutionOral history interview with Charles Sheeler, 1959 June 18, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian InstitutionCharles Sheeler: Across Media, The National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC
{{DEFAULTSORT:Sheeler, Charles 20th-century American photographers 20th-century American painters American male painters American modern artists Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts alumni Precisionism 1883 births 1965 deaths University of the Arts (Philadelphia) alumni Burials at Sleepy Hollow Cemetery Art competitors at the 1932 Summer Olympics Painters from Philadelphia 20th-century American male artists Public Works of Art Project artists