Classic Landscape

Charles Sheeler was a master of both painting and photography, and his work in one medium influenced and shaped his work in the other.

[1] In 1927, he was commissioned to photograph the Ford Motor Company's new River Rouge Plant near Detroit. Then the world's largest industrial complex, employing more than 75,000 workers, the plant produced Ford's Model A, successor to the famed Model T. Sheeler's photographs were used for the company's advertising, but he found himself greatly inspired by the subject, which he declared "incomparably the most thrilling I have had to work with."

[2] In 1930, he began painting oils of the plant, creating over the next six years American Landscape (1930, The Mus...