Biografie von Charles R. SHEELER (1883-1965)

Birth place: Philadelphia, PA

Death place: Dobbs Ferry, NY

Addresses: Doylestown, PA, 1910-18; Greenwich Village, NYC, 1919-; S. Salem, NY; Ridgefield, CT; Irvington, NY

Profession: Painter, photographer

Studied: PM School IA, 1900-03; PAFA with W.M. Chase, 1903-06 (and two summer classes with Chase in Europe, 1906-08).

Exhibited: PAFA Ann., 1907-10, 1930-31, 1939-58; AIC, 1907 -49 (prize, 1945); Armory Show, 1913; Marius De Zaya's Gal., 1917 (photographs); Forum Exh., NYC, 1917; Soc. Indep. Artists, 1917; Salons of Am., 1923; Corcoran Gal. biennials, 1932-57 (11 times); FMA, 1934 (solo); MoMA, 1939; AGAA, 1947; Currier Gal. Am. Art, 1948; Walker AC, 1952; traveling exhib. in 1954-55 to: UCLA, PAFA, Ft. Worth AM, de Young MA; San Diego MA; Munson-Williams-Proctor Inst.; Downtown Gal., 1958; WMAA. Awards: Harris prize, 1945 (prize); Hallmark Award, 1957.

Work: MOMA; Cleveland Mus.; PMA; PAFA; WMAA; BMFA; NMAA; FMA; Columbus Gal. FA; WMAA; WMA; Springfield MA; AIC; Newark Mus.; Santa Barbara MA; Univ. Nebraska; Detroit AI; Yale Univ. AG; CPLH; PMG; CMA; Regis Coll., Minneapolis; Munson-Williams-Proctor Inst., Utica, NY; CGA

Comments: Leading Precisionist painter and photographer. After studying for several years with Chase, Sheeler became interested in modern art during a visit to Europe (1908-10) with Morton Schamberg. Returning to America, Sheeler took up photography and began supporting himself as a commercial photographer in 1912. For the next several years he took pictures of rural farmhouses (around Doylestown) in a sharp-focus style that reveals his taste for simple and austere forms. Throughout his career, the composition of his paintings and his photographs reflected similar aesthetic concerns. In 1917 he began making paintings of barns, leaving out the surrounding outdoor setting and paring down the image to its most basic shapes and lines, in an effort to reduce natural forms to the borderline of abstraction" (quoted in Davidson, 187); he also made a number of abstracted still lifes, using as his subject matter the Shaker antiques he had begun collecting. In the 1920s he was hired by Ford Motor Company to photograph the River Rouge plant near Detroit. From the 32 prints made, a number of Precisionist paintings resulted, including "Classic Landscape" and "American Landscape" (both MOMA). These photographs and paintings helped to make Sheeler's reputation, and in the 1930s he further explored industrial subjects and also painted a series of paintings of older America, and a number of sparse domestic interiors, absent of human beings. In the 1940s Sheeler experimented with multiple images, both in his photography and in his painting. Positions: contrib., fashion and portrait photos to Vogue and Vanity Fair, 1920s; contrib., photos for N.W. Ayer advertising agency, Phila.; collaborated with Paul Strand on "Manhatta," a six-minute film, in 1921; photographer-in-residence, MMA, 1942-45 (Sheeler photographed works in the collection); artist-in-residence, Phillips Acad., Andover, MA, 1946; Currier Gal. Art, Manchester, NH, 1948.

Sources: WW59; WW47; Witkin & London, 232; A. Davidson, Early American Modernist Painting, 186-93; Martin L. Friedman, Charles Sheeler (New York, 1975); Carol Troyan and Erica E. Hirshler, Charles Sheeler, Paintings and Drawings (Boston, 1987); Falk, Exh. Record Series; Baigell, Dictionary; Brown, The Story of the Armory Show. "