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Portfolios%3D%22599%22%20and%20Disp_Obj_Type%3D%22Drawing%22%20and%20Sort_Artist%3D%22Sheeler,%20Charles%22
Drawing
Ballet Mechanique
Charles Sheeler, 1883 - 1965
Sheeler, Charles
United States
1883 - 1965
Male
10 1/2 x 10 1/4 in. (26.7 x 26 cm)
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image
Conte crayon
Conte crayon
1931
1931
1931
1900-2000, 20th century, cityscapes, drawing, factories, Precisionism
Drawing
In 1927, Charles Sheeler was commissioned to photograph Henry Ford’s River Rouge car factory outside Detroit to advertise the company’s new Model A car. Ford’s innovations in the assembly line were celebrated for their efficiency, productivity, and ability to produce low-cost consumer goods. Yet the dark underside to this progress was unbearable, dehumanizing work conditions.
<em>Ballet Mechanique</em>, based on a photo from Sheeler’s Ford factory series, is a tightly-cropped scene of an industrial system of pipes and metal. By isolating the sleek machinery from actual labor, Sheeler elevates the loud, hot, dangerous factory environment to a cool, sleek, abstract vision of modernity.
Sheeler’s style, Precisionism, was a celebration of the technological sublime with its crisp, pure form and industrial themes. Of American artists in the early years of the 1900s, Charles Sheeler made one of the most dramatic breaks from the traditional assumption that beauty could be found in nature alone.
[label text for <em>Modern Icon: The Machine As Subject in American Art</em> exhibition, February 3 – March 6, 2012]
lower right, in image
1974.96
item
Memorial Art Gallery
9/8/1999
74.96TR1
Transparency
Memorial Art Gallery
2 x 2 3/4
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74.96TR2
transparency
4 x 5
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74.96SL1
slide
2 x 2
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negative
4 x 5
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74.96BW1
glossy
8 x 10
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74.96DI1
digital image
Memorial Art Gallery
Imaging complete
2/19/2001
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M425_p223.tif
digital image
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digital image
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