Bowl

The bowl and music stand, formerly owned by the artist Charles Sheeler, speak to the influence of early American "folk" furniture, textiles, ceramics, glass, metalwork, and painting on twentieth century visual arts and collecting. In the mid-1910s to the 30s, Sheeler collected eighteenth- and nineteenth-century antiques and Shaker art. Sheeler’s collection of folk art became identifiable still-life elements in a series of interior scenes, including Americana (1931) based on the interiors of the artist’s South Salem, New York residence. Like Sheeler, many American collectors and artists in the period exercised an ambivalence towards the historical context and meaning of antique objects and focused on the intrinsic form, line, or color of objects and their potential artistic juxtapositions. Sheeler explained his interest in early furniture, particularly that made by the Shakers: "I don’t like these things because they are old but in spite of it. I’d like them still better if they were made yesterday because then they would afford proof that the same kind of creative power is continuing."