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African Negro Wood Sculpture Portfolio

Charles Sheeler American

1918

Not on view

In Charles Sheeler’s reinterpretation of the Meyers’ Fang reliquary figure, strong interplays of light and shadow have a profound impact on the work’s features. Sheeler started collaborating with De Zayas’s Modern Gallery in 1916, taking photographs of works on display as gallery records. His interest in African sculpture is made evident through this photographic album, African Negro Wood Sculpture. Its twenty images are introduced by an essay by De Zayas expressing the foundation of his theory on modern and African art: "Negro sculpture has been the stepping stone for a fecund evolution in our art. It brought to us a new form of expression and a new expression of form, finding a point of support in our sensibility."

African Negro Wood Sculpture Portfolio, Charles Sheeler (American, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 1883–1965 Dobbs Ferry, New York), Portfolio of 20 photographs — Due to rights restrictions, this image cannot be enlarged, viewed at full screen, or downloaded.

Title: African Negro Wood Sculpture Portfolio

Artist: Charles Sheeler (American, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 1883–1965 Dobbs Ferry, New York)

Date: 1918

Medium: Portfolio of 20 photographs

Dimensions: Closed: H. x W.: 16 3/16 x 13 5/16 in. (41.12 x 33.81 cm)
Open: H. x W.: 16 3/16 x 25 11/16 in. (41.12 x 65.25 cm)

Classification: Paper

Credit Line: James J. Ross, New York

Accession Number: Armory-1915-10

The Met

The Michael C. Rockefeller Wing at The Met

The Met's collection of art of the peoples of sub-Saharan Africa, the Pacific Islands, and North, Central, and South America comprises more than eleven thousand works of art of varied materials and types, representing diverse cultural traditions from as early as 3000 B.C.E. to the present.