applied to but was rejected by the Pennsylvania
Academy of the Fine Arts, and was directed instead
to Philadelphia’s School of Industrial Art. By 1903,
Sheeler—thoroughly disenchanted by his studies at
the design school—successfully reapplied to the
Pennsylvania Academy and began to study under
the American Impressionist painter, William Mer-
ritt Chase. Sheeler graduated from the Academy in
1906 and found moderate success as a painter in the
period following. However, seeing first-hand the
work of the European avant-garde (Paul Ce ́zanne,
Pablo Picasso, Georges Braque, and Henri Matisse,
amongst others) during a trip to Europe in 1908–
1909, Sheeler was to radically rethink his aesthetic,
rejecting the teachings of Chase (spontaneity, fluid-
ity) and taking up those of European modernism
(design, flatness, abstraction).
Around 1910, Sheeler bought a camera and began
working as a commercial photographer to support
himself as an artist, photographing the work of
Pennsylvania architects (1912–1914) and then, be-
tween 1914–1924, paintings and sculptures for var-
ious museums and collectors (e.g., John Quinn’s
collection of African Sculpture [1916–1918]; Walter
Arensberg’s apartment [c. 1918]). Sheeler initially
chose photography because he felt it to be ‘‘far
removed from art’’; however, as the 1910s unfolded,
he began to see photography less as a ‘‘necessary
evil’’ but as part of his overall aesthetic vision. This
change in perspective is marked by Sheeler’s trans-
position of certain conventions of commercial pho-
tography into the realm of artistic photography.
Sheeler’s photographs of the barns of Bucks County,
Pennsylvania—especiallySide of White Barn(1915),
and the photographs of the Doylestown House
(c.1915; also in Bucks County)—are the earliest
examples. These images of the weekend retreat Shee-
ler began renting in 1910 are the artist’s first true
exploration of an American context through the
application of cubism’s underlying principles com-
bined with a ‘‘straight’’ approach. For Sheeler’s bio-
grapher, Constance Rourke,Side of White Barnis ‘‘a
simple poetry of surfaces, light and line’’ (Rourke
1938), but, more importantly, it is the work of an
American modern artist blending high European
modernist ideas with an American vernacular sub-
ject matter: Sheeler is anAmericanmodernist.
Side of White Barnand the images of the Doy-
lestown House marked a major departure from the
soft-focus, idealistic visions of Pictorialists such as
Alfred Stieglitz (with whom Sheeler corresponded
from 1911), whose aesthetic predominated pho-
tography at the turn of the century and into its
beginning decades. With its hard lines, bright
light, and distinct textures, as well as its honest
concentration on form and sharply focused com-
position,Side of White Barnis the antithesis of
Pictorialism. The impact of these photographs
was such that Marius de Zayas would claim, ‘‘It
was Charles Sheeler who proved that cubism exists
in nature and that photography can record it’’ (de
Zayas, 1996). Sheeler continued to pursue exactly
this vision in a series of seven photographs of New
York (1920) (seeNew York, Park Row Building,
1920) taken of the rear of the Park Row building
from the 41-story Equitable Building at 120 Broad-
way. Accentuating the images’ architectural forms
and the rhythmic patterns of the structures’ win-
dows are a shallow depth of field and careful crop-
ping of each image so as to remove the horizon,
which further collapses space within the frame.
These images emerged from the short film,Man-
hatta (1920), made in collaboration with Paul
Strand during the spring and summer of 1920.
Barely seven minutes long, the film’s narrative
charts a day in the life of Manhattan; interspliced
with lines of poetry from Walt Whitman’sManna-
hatta, the camera captures the angular architecture
and dizzying perspectives of New York City.Man-
hatta is one of three avant-garde films Sheeler
made during the 1910s (onlyManhattasurvives),
and he printed still images from them all, another
aspect of practice that often goes unmentioned (see
Mora in Stebbins, 2002). FromManhatta, Sheeler
reproduced 15 images and from another lost film, a
series of images of Katherine Baird Schaffer—
whom he married in 1921—Katharine, Nudes,c.
1918–1919. The images of Katherine’s body are
tightly cropped and in some respects reminiscent
of Edward Weston’s nudes. They also form part of
an identifiable style and approach in Sheeler’s
photographic work that continues throughout the
1920s. In 1926, and on the invitation of Edward
Steichen, Sheeler became a staff photographer for
Conde ́Nast, photographing fashion and portraits
of ‘‘stars’’ forVogueandVanity Fair. Later that
year, Vaughan Flannery, art director at the Phila-
delphia advertising firm, NJ Ayer & Sons, offered
Sheeler the River Rouge Commission. The success
of the images encouraged Sheeler to become a staff
photographer for the Ford Motor Company, a
position he held until 1929, a role that has been
recently criticized (see Terry Smith). The artist
made his final visit to Europe in 1929, visiting
Chartres Cathedral and photographing the struc-
ture with the same approach and technique as he
had the Rouge, linking the modern and pre-mod-
ern through photography’s technological gaze.
However, despite Sheeler’s commercial and artistic
photographic successes, the artist’s engagementSHEELER, CHARLES