Nude Torso

Prints and Drawings

c. 1920

Charles Sheeler
American, 1883-1965

A painter, photographer, printmaker, and draftsman, Charles Sheeler became the major exponent of Precisionism, a style that employed clean-cut lines, simple forms, and sharp focus. He was part of the New York avant-garde art world that also included Charles Demuth and others associated with Alfred Stieglitz. In his quest for elegant simplification, Sheeler was drawn to a wide variety of sources, from Shaker artifacts to modern industrial architecture. His keen eye and delicate touch oscillate between realism and abstraction in this depiction of a section of a woman’s torso.

Status: Currently Off View
Department: Prints and Drawings

Artist: Charles Sheeler
Title: Nude Torso
Place: United States (Artist's nationality:)
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.: Made 1903–1922
Medium: Graphite and black pencil, with stumping and erasing, on ivory wove paper, laid down on off-white wove paper
Inscriptions: Inscribed lower right: "84"
Dimensions: 11.5 × 16 cm (4 9/16 × 6 5/16 in.)
Credit Line: Friends of American Art Collection
Reference Number: 1922.5542

Lillian Dochterman, The Stylistic Development of the Work of Charles Sheeler (Ph.D. diss., State University of Iowa, 1963), pp. 255, no. 24.107.
Carol Troyen and Erica E. Hirshler, Charles Sheeler: Paintings and Drawings, exh. cat. (Boston, Museum of Fine Arts, 1987), p. 78-79, no. 15 (ill.).
Judith A. Barter et al., “American Modernism at the Art Institute of Chicago, From World War I to 1955,” (Art Institute of Chicago/Yale University Press, 2009), no. 26.

Art Institute of Chicago, “Century of Progress Exhibition of Painting and Sculpture,” June 1-Nov. 1, 1933, cat. 1074.
New York, Museum of Modern Art, “Charles Sheeler: Paintings, Drawings, Photographs,” Oct. 2-Nov. 1, 1939, cat. 71, p. 22 (ill.), as Torso.
Iowa City, University of Iowa, “The Quest of Charles Sheeler,” Mar. 17-Apr. 14, 1963, cat. 25.
Berlin, Akademie der Künste, “Amerika: Traum und Depression, 1920 / 1940,” Nov. 9–Dec. 28, 1980, cat. 294, as Female Torso; also Hamburg, Kunstverein, Jan. 11–Feb. 15, 1981.
Boston, Museum of Fine Arts, “Charles Sheeler: Paintings, Drawings, Photographs,” Oct. 13, 1987-Jan. 3, 1988, cat. 15, p. 79 (ill.); also New York, Whitney Museum of American Art, Jan. 28-Apr. 17, 1988; and Dallas Museum of Art, May 15-July 10, 1988.
Art Institute of Chicago, “Modern in America: Works on Paper, 1900-1950s,” Jan. 30-May 3, 2010, no cat.

The artist; sold by Marius de Zayas to the Art Institute of Chicago, 1921.

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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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