Photography

Charles Sheeler and Paul Strand:
Friends, Collaborators, Rivals

Thursday, June 21
8:00 PM

Visual presentation

As collaborators, Charles Sheeler and Paul Strand are best known for their avant-garde documentary short Manhatta (released in 1921).  Yet the film was only a part of a much more ambitious collaborative undertaking that was never explicitly articulated and ultimately fell apart after the film failed to generate income and commercial opportunities. For each, Manhatta represented one highpoint in their respective artistic journeys, which gradually brought them together and then drove them apart.  Charles Musser, a professor of Film & Media Studies as well as American Studies and Theater Studies at Yale University, argues that the nature of this association and the political nature of Sheeler’s work in the 1910s has been overlooked and is in need of careful reassessment. In this respect, there are several other figures who played significant roles in their professional lives, notably Alfred Stieglitz and Morton Schamberg.

THIS EVENT IS FREE AND OPEN TO THE PUBLIC. A RESERVATION IS NOT REQUIRED.