During a visit to San Francisco, Sheeler produced several photographs to use in his process of painting. This unusual view of the Golden Gate Bridge, emphasizing the structure’s soaring height instead of its considerable expanse, resulted from his superimposition of several 35-millimeter slides and was painted after he returned to the East Coast.
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Artwork Details
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Title:Golden Gate
Artist:Charles Sheeler (American, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 1883–1965 Dobbs Ferry, New York)
Date:1955
Medium:Oil on canvas
Dimensions:25 × 34 in. (63.5 × 86.4 cm)
Classification:Paintings
Credit Line:George A. Hearn Fund, 1955
Object Number:55.99
Inscription: Signed and dated (lower right): Sheeler. 1955.
[Downtown Gallery, New York, 1955; sold to MMA]
New York. Downtown Gallery. "Exhibition: New Paintings and Sculpture," April 26–May 21, 1955, no. 8 (as "Golden Gate").
New York. Downtown Gallery. "The Recurrent Image," January 31–February 25, 1956, brochure no. 16 (as "The Golden Gate").
Venice. U. S. Pavilion. "XXVIII Biennale: American Artists Paint the City," June 1–October 1, 1956, no. 38 (p. 46 in unnum. cat. published by exh. organizer, The Art Institute of Chicago).
New York. Wildenstein. "The American Vision: Paintings of Three Centuries," October 23–November 16, 1957, not in catalogue (added to the exhibition on November 4, 1957).
New York. Downtown Gallery. "Sheeler: Recent Paintings," March 25–April 19, 1958, no. 5 (as "The Golden Gate").
Iowa City. University of Iowa. "The Quest of Charles Sheeler: 83 Works Honoring His 80th Year," March 17—April 14, 1963, no. 67.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Three Centuries of American Painting," April 9–October 17, 1965, unnum. checklist.
Cedar Rapids Art Center. "Charles Sheeler: A Retrospective Exhibition," October 25–November 26, 1967, no. 25.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "American Paintings, Drawings and Watercolors from the Museum's Collections," October 1–December 7, 1969, no catalogue.
Trenton. New Jersey State Museum. "This Land is Your Land," April 10–September 6, 1976, unnumbered cat.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Tribute to a Curator: Robert Beverly Hale," November 16, 1978–March 4, 1979, extended to March 18, 1979, no catalogue.
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. "Charles Sheeler: Paintings, Drawings, Photographs," October 13, 1987–January 3, 1988, no. 81.
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York. "Charles Sheeler: Paintings, Drawings, Photographs," January 28–April 17, 1988.
San Francisco. M. H. de Young Memorial Museum. "Facing Eden: 100 Years of Landscape Art in the Bay Area," June 25–September 10, 1995, no. 143.
Roslyn Harbor, N. Y. Nassau County Museum of Art. "American Vanguards," January 21–April 28, 1996, not in catalogue.
de Young, San Francisco. "Cult of the Machine: Precisionism and American Art," March 24–August 12, 2018, no. 49.
Dallas Museum of Art. "Cult of the Machine: Precisionism and American Art," September 16, 2018–January 6, 2019, no. 49.
A. L. Chanin. "Charles Sheeler: Purist Brush and Camera Eye." Art News 54 (Summer 1955), pp. 40, 72, ill., praises the "lyric spirit" of this "daring" abstraction.
"The Age of Experiment." Time 67 (February 13, 1956), pp. 62, 66, ill. (color).
Lillian Dochterman. The Quest of Charles Sheeler: 83 Works Honoring His 80th Year. Exh. cat., University of Iowa. Iowa City, 1963, pp. 32, 51, no. 67, fig. 23.
Henry Geldzahler. American Painting in the Twentieth Century. New York, 1965, p. 140, ill.
A. L. Chanin. Art Guide/ New York. New York, 1965, p. 99, no. 148.
Lillian Freedgood. An Enduring Image: American Painting from 1665. New York, 1970, ill. p. 299.
A. Hyatt Mayor. The Metropolitan Museum of Art: Favorite Paintings. New York, 1979, pp. 104–5, ill. (color).
Leonard Everett Fisher. Masterpieces of American Painting. New York, 1985, pp. 196, 222, no. 83, ill. pp. 198–99 (color).
Carol Troyen and Erica E. Hirshler inCharles Sheeler: Paintings and Drawings. Exh. cat., Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Boston, 1987, pp. 210–12, no. 81, ill. (color).
Patricia Junker inFacing Eden: 100 Years of Landscape Art in the Bay Area. Exh. cat., M. H. de Young Memorial Museum. San Francisco, 1995, pp. 72, 206, no. 143, fig. 16 (color).
Kenneth Baker. "San Francisco: 'Facing Eden' M. H. De Young Museum." Art News 94 (November 1995), p. 250.
Charles Sheeler (American, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 1883–1965 Dobbs Ferry, New York)
ca. 1930
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