Wrigley's

1937

Charles Green Shaw (American, 1892–1974)

In Wrigley’s, Charles Green Shaw depicted a package of spearmint gum against a series of rectangular forms that suggests the Lower Manhattan skyline; the levitating, rotating rectangle of the gum echoes the blocky, static shapes of the vertical skyscrapers. Shaw, an early advocate of nonobjective art in the United States, painted Wrigley’s as a speculative advertising pitch pairing abstraction with commercial art. Although an advertising poster was never produced, the witty juxtapositions of Shaw’s design align Wrigley’s gum with the breathtaking modernity of skyscrapers and the excitement of urban life.

Status: On View, Gallery 262
Department: Arts of the Americas

Artist: Charles Green Shaw
Title: Wrigley's
Place: New York City (Object made in)
Date Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.: 1937
Medium: Oil on canvas
Inscriptions: Signed l.r.: Shaw
Dimensions: 76.2 × 114.3 cm (30 × 45 in.)
Credit Line: Purchased with funds provided by the Alsdorf Foundation
Reference Number: 1978.417

Judith Tannenbaum, “Charles Shaw,” Arts Magazine 50, no. 6 (Feb. 1976): 15.
Judith A. Barter, et al., American Modernism at the Art Institute of Chicago, From World War I to 1955 (Chicago: Art Institute of Chicago, 2009), 240–43, cat. 113 (ill.).
Judith A. Barter, ed., America After the Fall: Painting in the 1930s, exh. cat. (Chicago: Art Insitute of Chicago, 2016), 75–77, 187, cat. 42, fig. 14 (ill.).

New York, Washburn Gallery, Charles Shaw: Work from 1935 to 1942, Dec. 2, 1975–Jan. 10, 1976. [works in show are not listed, nor is Wrigley’s illustrated, but the Judith Tannenbaum article in Arts Magazine confirms that it was in this show.]
Ridgefield, CT, Aldrich Museum of Contemporary Art, Charles Shaw, June 25–Aug. 7, 1977, no cat.
New York, Grey Art Gallery, New York University, The Park Avenue Cubists: The Work of Gallatin, Morris, Frelinghuysen, and Shaw, Jan. 14–Mar. 29, 2003, cat.; Addison Gallery of American Art, Phillips Academy, Apr. 22–July 31, 2003; Gainesville, FL, Samuel P. Harn Museum of Art, University of Florida, Sept. 2–Nov. 30, 2003.
Art Institute of Chicago, America After the Fall: Painting in the 1930s, June 5–Sept. 18, 2016, cat. 42; Paris, Musee de l’Orangerie, Oct. 15, 2016–Jan. 30, 2017; London, Royal Academy, Feb. 25–June 4, 2017.

The artist; bequeathed to Charles H. Carpenter, New Canaan, CT, 1974; [Washburn Gallery, c. 1974–1978], sold to the Art Institute of Chicago, 1978.

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Date Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.

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