1925, Charles Sheeler, Still Life -- de Young Museum (San Francisco)
From the museum label:
Following studies at the Philadelphia School of Industrial Design and at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Charles Sheeler traveled to Europe, where he had a trans- formative encounter with the revolutionary works of Paul Cézanne, Henri Matisse, and Pablo Picasso. Upon his return, he took up photography to earn a living and soon became the first American modernist to integrate painting, photography, and drawing practices into a Precisionist vision of American architecture, technology, and crafts.
Sheeler's Still Life contributes to a long tradition of tabletop still life paintings that evoke the senses of sight and, vicariously, smell, touch, and taste. This deceptively simple composition depicts common household objects-one plate, two glass vessels, and three fruits-that are artfully arranged to emphasize formal issues of perspective, form, color, and light. Sheeler's photographic realism anchors these gravity-defying objects that otherwise would slide off the table.
1925, Charles Sheeler, Still Life -- de Young Museum (San Francisco)
From the museum label:
Following studies at the Philadelphia School of Industrial Design and at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Charles Sheeler traveled to Europe, where he had a trans- formative encounter with the revolutionary works of Paul Cézanne, Henri Matisse, and Pablo Picasso. Upon his return, he took up photography to earn a living and soon became the first American modernist to integrate painting, photography, and drawing practices into a Precisionist vision of American architecture, technology, and crafts.
Sheeler's Still Life contributes to a long tradition of tabletop still life paintings that evoke the senses of sight and, vicariously, smell, touch, and taste. This deceptively simple composition depicts common household objects-one plate, two glass vessels, and three fruits-that are artfully arranged to emphasize formal issues of perspective, form, color, and light. Sheeler's photographic realism anchors these gravity-defying objects that otherwise would slide off the table.