Charles Sheeler was the stark poet of the machine age. Photographer of the Ford Motor Company and founder of the painting movement Precisionism, he is remembered as a promoter of - and also an apologist for - the industrialised capitalist ethic. This major new rethink of one of the key figures of American modernism argues that Sheeler's true relationship to progress was in fact highly negative, his 'precisionism' both skewed and imprecise.
Covering the entire oeuvre from photography to painting, Mark Rawlinson considers Sheeler's approach in light of Theodor Adorno's critique of rationalisation and through close readings of the works themselves. Drawing attention to the inconsistencies and curiosities embedded in Sheeler's work, hitherto seen as little more than visual 'puzzles', Rawlinson reveals a profound critique of the processes of rationalisation and a concern with the inability to dwell under the conditions of modernity. Finally he argues for a re-evaluation of Sheeler's often-dismissed late works of the 1940s and 1950s which, he suggests, may only be understood through a radical shift in critical perspective and expectation.
Charles Sheeler was the poet of the machine age. Photographer of the Ford Motor Company and founder of the painting movement Precisionism, he is remembered as a promoter of - and apologist for - the industrialised capitalist ethic. This book argues that his true relationship to progress was negative, his 'precisionism' both skewed and imprecise.
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