id: 159478 accession number: 1996.252 share license status: Copyrighted url: https://clevelandart.org/art/1996.252 updated: 2023-08-23 23:36:34.819000 Modern Progress in Transportation, c. 1930. Charles Sheeler (American, 1883–1965). Tempera and graphite; sheet: 31.6 x 56.1 cm (12 7/16 x 22 1/16 in.); image: 20.4 x 45.5 cm (8 1/16 x 17 15/16 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Andrew R. and Martha Holden Jennings Fund 1996.252 title: Modern Progress in Transportation title in original language: series: series in original language: creation date: c. 1930 creation date earliest: 1925 creation date latest: 1935 current location: creditline: Andrew R. and Martha Holden Jennings Fund copyright: --- culture: America, 20th century technique: Tempera and graphite department: Drawings collection: DR - American 20th Century type: Drawing find spot: catalogue raisonne: --- CREATORS * Charles Sheeler (American, 1883–1965) - artist Charles Sheeler American, 1883-1965 Philadelphia-born Charles Sheeler was a well-known precisionist painter and photographer. After studying at the School of Industrial Art in Philadelphia (1900-3), he spent the next three years as a student of painter William Merritt Chase at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. Around 1910 he took up photography as a way to support himself. Sheeler began as an architectural photographer, documenting buildings for Philadelphia architects, but was soon taking pictures of paintings and other works of art. He continued to paint (in 1913 a group of his works were exhibited in the famous Armory Show in New York) and to photograph, often using his photographs as the basis for paintings. In 1917 his photographs were included in a three-person show along with Paul Strand and Morton Schamberg at Marius de Zayas's Modern Gallery in New York. Two years later Sheeler moved to New York and in 1920 collaborated with Paul Strand on the avant-garde film Manhatta (originally titled New York the Magnificent). In 1923 he began working as a staff photographer for Condé Nast publications. Four years later he received his most important commercial commission when Ford Motor Company hired him to photograph its River Rouge plant. A powerful series of images celebrating American industry resulted and were widely published. They also served as an inspiration for a number of his paintings. In 1939 a small group of Sheeler's photographs were included in a retrospective of his work organized by the Museum of Modern Art, New York. Over the next decade he worked as staff photographer for the Metropolitan Museum of Art and focused primarily on painting in his own work, especially during the late 1940s and 1950s. In 1959, after suffering a stroke, Sheeler stopped painting and photographing; he died six years later from a second stroke. M.M. --- measurements: Sheet: 31.6 x 56.1 cm (12 7/16 x 22 1/16 in.); Image: 20.4 x 45.5 cm (8 1/16 x 17 15/16 in.) state of the work: edition of the work: support materials: description: beige(1) wove paper (Rives BFK) watermarks: inscriptions: inscription: fragment of old label, now removed, in typescript: modern progress in tra[cropped]; by artist, in graphite: [b]y Charles Shee[ler] [cropped] translation: remark: --- CURRENT EXHIBITIONS title: American Drawings from the Permanent Collection opening date: 1998-04-19T00:00:00 American Drawings from the Permanent Collection. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (April 19-July 12, 1998). title: Master Drawings from the Cleveland Museum of Art opening date: 2000-08-27T00:00:00 Master Drawings from the Cleveland Museum of Art. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (August 27-October 17, 2000); The Morgan Library & Museum, New York, NY (May 23-August 19, 2001); Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Houston, TX (October 14, 2001-January 6, 2002). --- LEGACY EXHIBITIONS --- PROVENANCE Charles Sheeler, sold to private collection, Philadelphia, PA date: 1930s-? footnotes: citations: Private collection, Philadelpha, PA, by descent date: 1930s-1996 footnotes: citations: (Sotheby's, New York, NY, March 14, 1996, no. 157, sold to Martha Parrish and James Reinish, Inc.) date: 1996 footnotes: citations: (Martha Parrish & James Reinish, Inc., New York, NY, sold to Cleveland Museum of Art) date: 1996 footnotes: citations: The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH date: 1996- footnotes: citations: --- fun fact: Charles Sheeler was commissioned by the Ford Motor Company to spend six weeks photographing its new factory, and this drawing relates to the images he created then. digital description: Charles Sheeler based this work, a combination of painting and drawing, on a photograph he took of a Ford Trimotor airplane on the assembly line at the company's plant near its huge River Rouge facility in Dearborn, Michigan. The artist felt that photography could help him see things in a more objective and truthful way, so that he could concentrate on representing pure form. Sheeler loved industrial subjects and held an optimistic view of the impact of modern machines on everyday life -- even during the Great Depression, when this drawing was made. His style became known as "Precisionism" because of its crisp, clear forms and elimination of detail. wall description: Sheeler based this work, a combination of painting and drawing, on a photograph he took of a Ford Trimotor airplane on the assembly line at the company's plant near its huge River Rouge facility in Dearborn, Michigan. The artist felt that photo-graphy could help him see things in a more objective and truthful way, so that he could con-centrate on the purity of forms themselves. He loved industrial subjects and held an optimistic view of the impact of modern machines on everyday life. His style became known as "Precisionism" because of its crisp, clear forms and elimination of detail. --- RELATED WORKS --- CITATIONS Cleveland Museum of Art, “Rare Korean Screen Painting, Important Baroque Drawing, Sheeler Drawing Join the Museum Collection,” October 10, 1996, Cleveland Museum of Art Archives. page number: url: https://archive.org/details/cmapr4074 DeGrazia, Diane, and Carter E. Foster. Master Drawings from the Cleveland Museum of Art. Exh. Cat. Cleveland: Cleveland Museum of Art, 2000. page number: Mentioned: pp. 254-55, p. 197; Reproduced: p. 255 url: --- IMAGES