Palm Beach Show 2011

Charles Sheeler (American, 1883–1965) Composition around White, 1959 Oil on canvas, 30 x 33 inches Collection of Deborah and Ed Shein Sheeler’s works, with their particular blend of quintessentially American subjects and modern style, often were described as both familiar and abstract. That is especially true in this depiction of a New England barn—his last variation on a theme that had occupied him for decades. The composition, rendered with broad, flat application of color, is based on photomontages the artist made of barns in which he layered negatives to create complex arrangements of superimposed architectural forms. Stuart Davis (American, 1892–1964) Unfinished Business, 1962 Oil on canvas, 36 x 45 inches Collection of Deborah and Ed Shein When the Philadelphia-born Davis exhibited at the Armory Show in 1913 he was one of the youngest participants. Beginning in the 1920s he brought the graphic sensibility and restricted palette of commercial advertising into his art. These qualities are evident in one of the artist’s last paintings, Unfinished Business, in which Davis engages viewers in a bit of visual wordplay. An assortment of Xs and Os suggests tic-tac- toe symbols that have slipped off their grid. In the lower right quadrant, “Edy” is rendered in script, and along the right edge “PAD” is printed. The former is likely a variation of the sequence “Ideas—Eyedas—Eyedeas” that Davis recorded in one of his sketchbooks, also known as sketchpads or “pads.” Combined with the letters “NO” at left we may surmise that Davis was referring to the American poet William Carlos Williams’ famous axiom, “No ideas but in things.” 23 In 2008 and 2009, the Gallery received three gifts from Edward and Deborah Shein: John Storrs’ Auto Tower, Industrial Forms (c. 1922), Marcel Duchamp’s Fresh Widow (1920/1964), and John Marin’s The Written Sea (1952). The Sheins intend to continue making gifts of important works from their collection with their ultimate goal of giving all 20 of their masterworks to the National Gallery of Art, Washington. Presented here are details of a selection from the twenty works that were exhibited in American Modernism: The Shein Collection, which closed on January 3, 2011, at the National Gallery of Art in Washington. American Modernism was organized by Charles Brock and Nancy Anderson, with Harry Cooper. This article is reprinted in part from the Summer 2010 issue of Antiques & Fine Art Magazine. Charles Brock is associate curator of American and British Paintings, Nancy Anderson is curator and head of the department of American and British Paintings, and Harry Cooper is curator and head of the department of Modern and Contemporary Art at the National Gallery of Art, Washington.