Art in CONTEXT

Charles Sheeler is one of the most important painters of the so-called Precisionist movement, which originated in the United States in the years following the 1913 Armory Show in New York City. It was at this seminal exhibition (later seen in Chicago and Boston) where many American artists and critics had their first exposure to such European trends as Post-Impressionism, Fauvism, and Cubism. It was the latter, intellectual Cubism, with its interest in fractured matter and multiple viewpoints, that became translated on this side of the Atlantic by artists like Sheeler, Charles Demuth and Georgia O'Keeffe. These painters gave the style a distinctly American character, stressing clarity, sharply defined shapes, and cool and balanced color schemes, all tempered with an eye for industrial precision. In many ways, Precisionism was a perfect style to extol the growing American urban landscape surrounded by booming factories and power plants.

Although Sheeler was equally drawn to rural America as well as intimate and personal studies of his home and studio interiors, he seemed best-suited to depicting the great achievements of American industry. As a photographer, he produced prints that he often translated into painted works. Stacks in Celebration was made from photographs he took at a power plant in New Bedford, Massachusetts around 1938-1939. The combination of elegantly tall stacks and horizontal buildings accented by a peaked-roof cylindrical squat tower excited Sheeler. He walked around the site for several hours and called it "breath-taking." In fact, his experience at this plant was the genesis for a number of works, including Fugue, 1940 (Museum of Fine Arts, Boston), Fugue, 1945 (Regis Collection, Minneapolis), and the Art Institute's Stacks in Celebration of 1954.

The differences between Sheeler's Fugue, 1940 and Stacks in Celebration are worth noting. In Fugue, Sheeler seems to be recreating his initial experience in a fairly direct and realistic - albeit purified - manner. Although he has reduced much extraneous detail for the benefit of the greater whole, the work remains a nearly photographic depiction of an industrial site. However, 14 years later, Sheeler returned to the same subject in Stacks, creating a much more dynamic and cerebral work. The horizontal buildings are flattened into rectangular shapes, which are punctuated by the multitude of vertical stacks with an almost musical rhythm. Even the sky behind is fractured into great diagonal planes and shards relieving the regularity of horizontal and vertical elements, helping to create an ensemble of great visual and intellectual power.

Dominique H. Vasseur

SUGGESTED READINGS:

Friedman, Martin. Charles Sheeler: Paintings, Drawings, Photographs. New York: Watson-Guptill Publications, 1975.

Troyen, Carol and Erica S. Hirshler. Charles Sheeler: Paintings and Drawings. Exhibition catalogue. Boston: Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, 1987.

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