Western Industrial

Often associated with the American artistic group known as the Precisionists, Charles Sheeler was both a painter and a photographer. This late work, Western Industrial, depicts the Inland Steel plant in East Chicago, Indiana. Evident here is the artist’s interest in line and overlapping shapes, his restrained painting style, and his use of subdued color. The many diagonals leading the eye to various points in the composition give the impression of an active industry; however, the plant is devoid of humans. Indeed, a critic once referred to one of Sheeler’s works as a “depopulated landscape.”