Visual and Performing Arts

Ambivalence, Irony, and Americana: Charles Sheeler’s “American Interiors”

Document Type

Article

Abstract

This article examines the canvases and photographs made by Charles Sheeler between 1926 and 1939 of his own collection of Shaker furniture, hooked rugs, and nineteenth-century ceramics. It argues that the paintings possess modernist self-consciousness, ambivalence, and irony toward their historical subject matter and that they critique the contemporary collecting fad for all things Americana. The article sets Sheeler's paintings in the context of the Metropolitan Museum's American Wing and the writings of Holger Cahill and Edward and Faith Andrews and argues that an ambivalent, ironical attitude pervaded much of the early scholarship on these artifacts. © B 2011 by The Henry Francis du Pont Winterthur Musuem, Inc. All rights reserved.

Publication Title

Winterthur Portfolio

Publication Date

12-1-2011

Volume

45

Issue

4

First Page

249

Last Page

276

ISSN

0084-0416

DOI

10.1086/663158

Keywords

Charles Sheeler, Americana, photography, painting

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