Charles Sheeler
A major figure in the precisionist movement, Charles Sheeler was born in 1883 in Philadelphia. He studied art from 1900 to 1906, first at the Pennsylvania School of Industrial Art, then under William Merritt Chase at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts.
In 1912, Sheeler had also ventured into commercial photography, focusing on architectural subjects and eventually becoming acquainted with New York avant-garde artists and collectors. His pioneering photographs, using sharp-focus effects, were also instrumental in transforming his paintings into detailed and smooth-surfaced images that reject his earlier loosely brushed style.
After Sheeler moved to New York in 1919, he dedicated himself to clarity and order, imposing these ideas on a subject that was rapidly becoming an American icon: the skyscraper. Like the Pennsylvania barn, a theme he had explored in 1917 and 1918, the skyscraper was an architectural subject through which the artist could capture the streamlined grandeur of New York. The geometry of the buildings lent itself ideally to the creation of abstract designs on canvas.
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