Bucks County Barn

Charles Sheeler

1915 · Gelatin silver print · Photographs

A realistic painter and photographer, Sheeler sought to uncover the harmonious coherence in the forms of indigenous American architecture. This work, one of the groundbreaking photographs of the era, was made near the Doylestown, Pennsylvania, farmhouse that Sheeler rented from 1910 to 1926. The spare geometry of the board-and-batten barn proved an irresistible subject for an artist eager to explore with a camera the radical formal ideas that had impressed him in the paintings of Cézanne, Picasso, and Braque. A severely cropped, yet elegantly balanced photograph, Bucks County Barn (alternately titled Side of White Barn) is a testament to Sheeler's clarity of vision and ability to distill a scene to its essence-a salient feature of the artist's work in all media.

Artist

Charles Sheeler

Date

1915

Medium

Gelatin silver print

Department

Photographs

Credit line

Gilman Collection, Purchase, Denise and Andrew Saul Gift, 2005