Conference No. 1

Artist Charles Sheeler (American, 1883 - 1965)

Date1954

MediumOil on canvas

DimensionsUnframed: 20 1/16 x 25 1/4 inches (50.96 x 64.14 cm)
Framed: 29 3/4 × 35 inches (75.57 × 88.9 cm)

Credit LineGift of the Friends of Art

Object number55-93

SignedSigned and dated lower right: Sheeler—1954

On View

On view

Gallery Location

Collections

American Art

Terms

DescriptionComposition of planes of houses, barns, etc., in white, grays, blues, purple, dark green.Exhibition History

Exhibition History

41st Annual Exhibition: Contemporary American Paintings, Toledo Museum of Art, June 6–August 29, 1954, no. 55.

Charles Sheeler: A Retrospective Exhibition, Art Galleries, University of California, Los Angeles; M. H. de Young Memorial Museum, San Francisco; Fort Worth Art Center; Munson-Williams-Proctor Institute, Utica, N.Y.; Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia; San Diego Fine Arts Gallery, October 10, 1954–June 12, 1955 (traveled), no. 43.

Distinguished Americans, Hackley Art Gallery, Muskegon, Mich., September 30–October 28, 1956, no cat.

Edward Wales Root, 1884–1956: An American Collector, Munson-Williams-Proctor Institute, Utica, N.Y., April 28–July 7, 1957 (traveled), unnumbered.

Sheeler: Recent Paintings, Downtown Gallery, New York, March 25–April 19, 1958, no. 8 (as Conference #1).

Kansas City Art Institute, Mo., September 16–October 9, 1958, no cat..

Inaugural Exhibition, University Center, University of Missouri, Kansas City, September 29–October 25, 1961, no cat.

Charles Sheeler Retrospective Exhibition, Allentown Art Museum, Pa., November 17–December 31, 1961, no. 46 (as Conference).

Charles Sheeler: A Retrospective Exhibition, Cedar Rapids Art Center, Iowa, October 25–November 26, 1967, no. 24.

50 Years of Collecting: The Friends of Art at the Nelson; A Retrospective Exhibition, Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Mo., December 15, 1984–January 15, 1985, no cat.

Order in Space: Precisionist Works by Demuth and Sheeler, Terra Museum of American Art, Evanston, Ill., November 17, 1985–January 12, 1986, no cat.

Gallery Label

Charles Sheeler painted dozens of compositions based on the 19th-century barns of Bucks County in his native Pennsylvania. Conference No. 1 expands on the painter's highly rational investigation of these barns, which he found to be surreptitiously modern. Like many members of his generation, Sheeler was drawn to such examples of vernacular architecture and craftsmanship for their honesty of design and unapologetic utilitarianism. He asserted their perceived modernity by painting in an austere style that reduces form to angular planes of flat color resembling cubism. His interlocking and overlapping planes blur the boundary between transparency and opacity. They also produce a layering effect tied to his related experiments in multiple exposure in photography, a medium in which he was also accomplished.

Provenance

To (Downtown Gallery, New York, 1954);

to NAMA, 1955.

Published References

41st Annual Exhibition: Contemporary American Paintings, exh. cat. (Toledo: Toledo Museum of Art, 1954), unpaginated.

William Carlos Williams, Bartlett H. Hayes Jr., and Frederick S. Wight, Charles Sheeler: A Retrospective Exhibition, exh. cat. (Los Angeles: Art Galleries, University of California, 1954), 46.

Winifred Shields, “Eleven Contemporary Painters Are Represented in Committee Choices,” Kansas City Star, September 23, 1955, 16.

Winifred Shields, “Friends of Art Will Vote, Then Count Public Ballots,” Kansas City Star, October 23, 1955, 4E.

Winifred Shields, “At Odds on an Art Gift,” Kansas City Times, October 28, 1955, 4A.

Walter A. Jones, “Something Wild,” letter to the editor, Kansas City Star, November 4, 1955, 54.

“Exhibition Honoring Edward W. Root, MWP Benefactor, Opens Today at 3:30,” Observer-Dispatch (Utica, N.Y.), April 28, 1957, 5D.

Edward Wales Root, 1884–1956: An American Collector, exh. cat. (Utica, N.Y.: Munson-Williams-Proctor Institute, 1957), unpaginated.

Sheeler: Recent Paintings, exh. cat. (New York: Downtown Gallery, 1958), unpaginated (as Conference #1).

Charles Sheeler Papers Current Files (1958), Downtown Gallery Records, 1924–74, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, microfilm reel ND40, frames 178–79 (as Conference #1).

Handbook of the Collections in the William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, 4^th ed. (Kansas City, Mo.: William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, 1959), 257.

Charles Sheeler Retrospective Exhibition, exh. cat. (Allentown, Pa.: Allentown Art Museum, 1961), 22 (as Conference).

Lillian Natalie Dochterman, “The Stylistic Development of the Work of Charles Sheeler,” Ph.D. diss., State University of Iowa, 1963, 515.

Charles Sheeler: A Retrospective Exhibition, exh. cat. (Cedar Rapids, Iowa: Cedar Rapids Art Center, 1967), unpaginated.

Ross E. Taggart and George L. McKenna, eds., Handbook of the Collections in The William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, Kansas City, Missouri, vol. 1, Art of the Occident, 5^th ed. (Kansas City, MO: William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, 1973), 254.

Martin L. Friedman, Charles Sheeler (New York: Watson- Guptill Publications, 1975), 178.

Lee Pentecost, “50 Years of Collecting: The Friends of Art at the Nelson; A Retrospective Exhibition,” typescript, 1984, NAMA curatorial files, 15.

Carol Troyen and Erica E. Hirshler, Charles Sheeler: Paintings and Drawings, exh. cat. (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1987), 218 (as Conference).

Henry Adams, Handbook of American Paintings in the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art (Kansas City, Mo.: Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 1991), 177.

Roger Ward and Patricia J. Fidler, eds. The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art: A Handbook of the Collections. 6^th ed. (New York: Hudson Hills Press, in association with Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 1993), 251.

Margaret C. Conrads, ed. The Collections of the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art: American Paintings to 1945 (Kansas City, Mo.: The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 2007), 1: 14 (repro., detail), 30, 488-90 (repro.), 2: 218-19 (repro.).

Deborah Emont Scott, ed., The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art: A Handbook of the Collection, 7th ed. (Kansas City, MO: Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 2008), 184 (repro.).

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