Delmonico Building, Charles Sheeler. (Looking & Learning).

About the Artist Charles Sheeler began his artistic career as a student at the School of Industrial Art in Philadelphia. After applying a number of times to the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, he was finally accepted. There he studied under William Merritt Chase, who helped cultivate Sheeler's early painterly style. Chase took his students on trips to Europe, where Sheeler and his classmates were exposed to trends in modern art. Sheeler met fellow artist Morton Schamberg while in school in Philadelphia, and the two established a country home in Doylestown, Pennsylvania. After graduation in 1906, Sheeler pursued his life as a painter and he and Schamberg began to experiment with photography, which they used as a means to support themselves and as a tool in their artwork. Influential contemporaries such as photographer and gallery owner Alfred Stieglitz encouraged Sheeler to show his work in New York, where Sheeler's reputation grew and where he eventually settled. Sheeler is associated with a group of American painters called Precisionists, and is best known for the streamlined imagery of his paintings and photographs of architectural and industrial subjects.

The Machine Age

At the height of Sheeler's career--between the World Wars--the United States was undergoing a major technological revolution. Electrification and innovations in the construction, transportation, and communication industries were transforming both rural and urban landscapes. In cities, many older buildings were being torn down and replaced with "modern" architecture. Artists were exploring the forms and aesthetic principles inspired by the new industries. The Armory Show of 1913 had introduced Americans to European artwork in avant-garde styles, particularly Cubism; and its impact on artists, including Sheeler, was enormous. Later, Machine Age modernism took a variety of paths. American artists such as Sheeler, Georgia O'Keeffe, Charles Demuth, and Ralston Crawford were associated with the Precisionist movement. These artists often made use of photography as a departure point for their compositions. As airplanes, faster and faster trains, automobiles and the roads to serve them, skyscrapers, and electric appliances were integrated into daily life, the Precisionists incorporated these spare, streamlined forms into their work.

About the Artwork

Sheeler completed numerous compositions of city architecture, particularly in New York. Sheeller's lithograph of the Delmonico Building is based on a photograph he took in 1926 of the same subject, which was published in Vanity Fair magazine. The lithograph clearly shows the emergence of a "modern" skyscraper among older buildings: a structure that was scheduled to open in 1929 as the lavish Hotel Delmonico. The artist chose either to exclude or obscure details on the building but finds importance in distinguishing the metal pins, attachments, and rustication left on the older building. The dynamic new building races up and away from the viewer, while the sharp vertical lines and distinct surfaces place the viewer in the environment. Sheeler has rendered the scene in a realist manner, but has made it abstract by eliminating detail. While the different planes and levels of the building recall a Cubist vocabulary, it still retains its identity and character.

Interpretation

Artists found it very important to record and reflect the transformation that was occurring in the American environment. The artworks completed by the Precisionists were commentaries on these changes and reflected a growing nation grappling with the expansion of technology and industry and the replacement of the old with the new. America in the 1920s embraced the modern, and the very austerity of Sheeler's buildings reveals a love for contemporary urban life and the beauty of the machine. Here he chooses not to show the frenetic pace of life on a New York street, but instead focuses our eyes on the geometry of the skyline. The new world presented here promises a better tomorrow. Later, The Great Depression, World War II, and a major growth in the population of the industrial North's cities would bring a greater ambivalence toward these changes.

Suggested Activities

Our urban and rural surroundings offer opportunities for limitless exploration. Wherever you live, something unique exists within that environment. Look at the world through the artist's eyes and imagine how Sheeler's ideas were generated by his surroundings and the society in which he lived. Record what you see in your own environment, appreciating both human-made and natural forms.

Bibliographic Resource

Charles Sheeler and the Cult of the Machine, 1991. London: Reaktion Books, Ltd.

Activities

Elementary

Geometric Abstraction

Discuss with students the concept of designing a building. Ask them to think about such issues as the building's function, place, impact on the neighborhood, skyline, and how it fits with older buildings. Take a walk around your school's neighborhood to look at nearby buildings. Discuss the basic geometric shapes that make up these structures. Ask students to think about how Sheeler might have photographed these buildings. What angles would he have chosen? Why? Back in the classroom, give students two or three photocopies of buildings. Have students draw the basic shapes of these structures on colored construction paper or textured paper, then cut them out and re arrange them to create a "new" building. When students are finished, ask them to share their ideas with the class.

Middle School

Sketch Journal

Ask students to complete a series of sketches based on the structures in their neighborhood. This is a visual recording of their environment and demonstrates how perceptive the human eye can be. Ask students to think about inventive ways to record details, spaces in-between, the relationship between old and new, and the changing skyline. Students will share their work by "walking" their classmates through their sketchbooks. They should explain why they chose these particular structures to record and what significance they hold for the community.

High School

Cityscape Album

Ask students to take black-and-white photographs of buildings and architectural elements in their city or town. Encourage students to think about how buildings reflect societal issues and ask them to interview people of various ages who live and/or work in the area. What do people think about the buildings in the neighborhood? What are their feelings about the relationship between old and new buildings? How has modern-day technology changed the way buildings look and feel? Include the photographs and the voices of the people (in written format) in a handmade album/ book. The album should provide evidence of place and time.

Laura Becker is an Art Education graduate student at Rhode Island School of Design, Providence, where she participates in the Museum Education strand in collaboration with RISD's Museum of Art.