The Photography of Charles Sheeler

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Power, Wheels, 1939. Charles Sheeler (American, 1883–1965). © The Lane Collection. Courtesy The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. More about This Exhibition Nearly 100 works, including 90 photographs, by Charles Sheeler (1883–1965), one of the most important American artists of the first half of the twentieth century and a pioneer of American modernism, were on view at The Metropolitan Museum of Art from June 3, 2003 through August 17, 2003. "The Photography of Charles Sheeler" was the first major exhibition to concentrate on each of Sheeler's landmark photographic series made between 1915 and 1939, and consisted of rare vintage prints. The exhibition revealed the full significance of Sheeler's photographs as the foundation from which his better-known works in other mediums were derived. The exhibition was made possible in part by Kenneth P. Siegel. It was organized by the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Photographs were drawn from The Lane Collection. The Doylestown House Nudes The Groundbreaking Manhatta and New York Ford Plant, River Rouge Americana The Series Power The Lane Collection Exhibition Venues Exhibition Organizers and Credits Exhibition Publication Educational Programs and Online Resources

The Doylestown House
The exhibition focused in depth on Sheeler's inventive intertwining of the American vernacular with European abstraction, beginning with Cubist-inspired photographs of a simple farmhouse in Doylestown, Pennsylvania (1915–1917). Sheeler became familiar with the latest European artistic innovations during a trip to Europe with his friend and fellow artist Morton Schamberg in 1908–09 and from his association with members of the American avant-garde, whom he encountered at the home of collectors Walter and Louise Arensberg in the late 1910s and the '20s. As he adapted the lessons of Paul Cézanne, Pablo Picasso, and Marcel Duchamp—artists whose work he saw and photographed at the Arensberg apartment—to his own interests, he created work in a number of mediums simultaneously. All were vital in formulating his artistic approach, as suggested by the selected paintings and drawings in "The Photography of Charles Sheeler."

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Nudes
Photography formed the foundation of his pictorial expression, however, especially in the early years of his career, as his next series—Nudes (1918–19)—revealed. On view was the complete set of semi-abstract photographs of his first wife Katharine—the only nude photographs Sheeler is known to have taken—which were created from a now-lost film produced in about 1918 with a 35mm hand-cranked movie camera.

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The Groundbreaking Manhatta and New York
Also on continuous view in the galleries was the groundbreaking Manhatta, made by Sheeler and Paul Strand in 1920 and considered the first American avant-garde film. In about ten minutes, Manhatta spans an imaginary day in the life of New York City, beginning with footage of Staten Island Ferry commuters and culminating with the sun setting over the Hudson River. Brief shots and dramatic camera angles emphasize the city's photogenic disposition. Fourteen still photographs made from the footage were featured in the exhibition. Shortly after making the film, Sheeler produced large-format photographs of New York—seven views of Broadway that employ a particularly cinematic effect. One of the photographs, New York, Park Row Building (1920), intones a visual duet with the painting Skyscrapers (1922, Phillips Collection, Washington, D.C.) which was displayed alongside it.

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Ford Plant, River Rouge
"The Photography of Charles Sheeler" also included an extensive selection of the images Sheeler made at the Ford Motor Company's River Rouge plant, near Detroit, in 1927. Created to celebrate the introduction of the Model A automobile, this series is regarded by many as the high point of American machine-age photography. Criss-Crossed Conveyors—one of Sheeler's best-known works and an icon of modern photography—was featured alongside such images as Pulverizer Building and Blast Furnace Interior. Sheeler documented the many functional design elements of the vast complex, conveying the mysterious beauty of the machines rather than trying to capture the expanse of the plant. The River Rouge pictures made a fascinating contrast with Sheeler's views of Chartres Cathedral made in France in 1929, also featured in the exhibition. Consistent with his modernist approach, Sheeler chose to focus on the Gothic cathedral's architectural details.

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Americana
With the painting Upper Deck (1929, Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University Art Museums)—included in the exhibition and heralded by many as a masterpiece of American modernism—Sheeler began to enfold his photographic activity into the process of his painting. The full transition occurred during the 1930s, when Sheeler's photographic series became ever more personal, as he focused on the various aspects of Americana that interested him. Included in the exhibition were photographs of antique and Shaker furnishings in his own home, as well as the painting Americana (1931, The Metropolitan Museum of Art), depicting the same subject matter.

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The Series Power
By the late 1930s, Sheeler had ceased to practice photography as an independent creative endeavor. Instead, it had become part of a systematic and increasingly complicated technique that conflated the processes of painting and photography, as in the series Power (1939), made on commission for Fortune magazine. Taken during his travels to such places as the Boulder Dam and the Tennessee Valley, these photographs—including the iconic Wheels—were made as studies for closely related paintings, which were then reproduced in the magazine.

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The Lane Collection
Photographs in the exhibition were drawn from The Lane Collection. In the early 1950s, the late William H. Lane (1914–1995), owner of a small Massachusetts manufacturing plant, formed a noteworthy collection of American modernist painting, which included numerous works by Charles Sheeler, Arthur G. Dove, Georgia O'Keeffe, Stuart Davis, Hans Hofmann, and Franz Kline. During the 1960s, Lane and his wife Saundra turned to collecting photography, acquiring the entire photographic estate of their friend Charles Sheeler in 1965 in order to preserve treasures that few people at the time appreciated.

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Exhibition Venues
Prior to its showing at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, "The Photography of Charles Sheeler" was on view at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. It is scheduled to travel to Fotomuseum, Winterthur, Switzerland (September 5–November 2, 2003), Städelsches Kunstinstitut und Städtische Galerie, Frankfurt, Germany (February 4–April 11, 2004), Detroit Institute of Arts (September 8–December 5, 2004), and The Georgia O'Keeffe Museum, Santa Fe (January 14–May 1, 2005).

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Exhibition Organizers and Credits
The exhibition was selected and organized by Theodore E. Stebbins, Jr., distinguished fellow and consultative curator of American art, Harvard University Art Museums, Gilles Mora, an independent French curator, and Karen Haas, curator of The Lane Collection at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. At the Metropolitan Museum, the exhibition was organized by Lisa Hostetler, research associate, with Malcolm Daniel, curator, in the Metropolitan's Department of Photographs.

The exhibition design was by Michael Batista, exhibit designer, with graphic design by Sue Koch, senior graphic designer, and lighting by Zack Zanolli, lighting designer, all of the Museum's Design Department.

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Exhibition Publication
The exhibition was accompanied by a fully illustrated catalogue published by Bulfinch Press in English and by Editions du Seuil in French, with essays by Stebbins, Mora, and Haas. The English edition is available in the Museum's bookshop and online in the Met Store.

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Educational Programs and Online Resources
The Metropolitan Museum offered a full range of educational programs in conjunction with the exhibition, including gallery talks given by Lisa Hostetler, research associate in the Metropolitan's Department of Photographs, as well as a lecture, "The Photographs of Charles Sheeler," by Karen Haas, curator of The Lane Collection at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

The landmark film Manhatta can be viewed in a new electronic feature, Artists View New York, available in Explore & Learn.

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