Charles+Sheeler

Charles Sheeler was born in Philadelphia and attended the Pennsylvania Museum School of Industrial Art. He started off as a painter but when he realized that he could not make a living of it, he turned to photography. He was a self taught photographer who made his living taking commercial photographs primarily of architecture. One instance of a contract given to Charles Sheeler was when he was hired by the Ford Motor Company to spend six weeks photographing one of its plants. When Charles Sheeler did paint it was in a way that complemented his photography. He was a precisionist and all of his paintings, like his photographs, were very exact. Percisionism was a term that Charles Sheeler made to describe the art that he made. He never altered the appearence of any of his artistic subjects but he still managed to make the image appealing to the eye. Charles Sheeler was a pioneer of straight photography.