Delmonico Building
Charles Sheeler (1883-1965), Delmonico Building, lithograph, 1926, edition of 50, signed and titled in pencil. Reference: Gordon 4.
Image Size 9.75 x 6.75 (248 x 171 mm), sheet Size 15.125 x 11.5 (384 x 292 mm)
A fine, clean impression, on off-white wove paper, with full margins (2 to 3 3/8 inches). A small loss (1/4 inch) in the top right sheet corner, well away from the image; otherwise in excellent condition.
Exhibited widely, including: Icons of Industrial Expansion: American Precisionist Prints, 1925-1941, Baruch College,1999. The American Scene: Prints from Hopper to Pollock, The British Museum, 2008. Reproduced in numerous volumes including : A Century of American Printmaking, 1880-1980, James Watrous, The University of Wisconsin Press, 1984; The American Scene: Prints from Hopper to Pollock, Stephen Coppel, The British Museum, 2008.
Sheeler’s Delmonico Building is of course one of the great examples of American Precisionist printmaking. The Delmonico Building, on Park and 59th Street, was built early in the 20th Century, and was situated across from George Miller’s famed lithographic studio. Sheeler shows the building from a very low perspective thereby exaggerating the sense of height one experiences; a similar compositional approach was used by Sheeler and photographer Paul Strand in their 1920 film Manhatta, which was shown recently at the Museum of Modern Art in conjunction with a show on modernist American printmaking.