CHARLES SHEELER (1883–1965) - American painter and photographer of industrial subjects
Charles Sheeler , River Rouge Plant , 1932. Oil on canvas, 20 × 24 1/8 in. (50.8 × 61.3 cm). Whitney Museum of American Art, New York American painter and photographer of industrial subjects By Alexandra A. Jopp Charles Sheeler, one of America’s leading Modernists, found formal beauty in machinery, the principal emblem of modernity Charles Sheeler, a central figure in American Realism and one of the most interesting and ambitious American artists, was known for producing compelling images of the Machine Age. During his prolific career, Sheeler employed machines, factory complexes near Detroit, New York skyscrapers, locomotive engines, power plants and barns as subjects for his pictures and used painting, drawing, and photography in his works, often in combination. Trained in Impressionist approaches to landscape themes, he experimented with painterly compositions before finding and mastering his outwardly depopulated landscape style, now often called precisionism....