The striking beauty of the Machine Age

A founder of 20th century American modernism, photographer Charles Sheeler built a career coaxing new worlds out of the ordinary ones he inhabited

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"Ford Plant — Criss-Crossed Conveyors," 1927, by Charles Sheeler
(Image credit: The Lane Collection, Image Courtesy Museum of Fine Arts, Boston)
(Image credit: (The Lane Collection, Image Courtesy Museum of Fine Arts, Boston)That celebration of the beauty in functionality is now on exhibit at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Charles Sheeler from Doy)

(Image credit: (The Lane Collection, Image Courtesy Museum of Fine Arts, Boston))

(Image credit: (The Lane Collection, Image Courtesy Museum of Fine Arts, Boston)Sheeler did not set out to be a photographer — indeed, as a young man he trained as a painter, traveling to Europe, where his)

(Image credit: (The Lane Collection, Image Courtesy Museum of Fine Arts, Boston))

(Image credit: (The Lane Collection, Image Courtesy Museum of Fine Arts, Boston)The first series on display at the MFA depicts quotidian views of Doylestown, Pennsylvania, where Sheeler rented a home for a)

(Image credit: (The Lane Collection, Image Courtesy Museum of Fine Arts, Boston)In 1920, Sheeler collaborated on a short, silent film with fellow modernist photographer and filmmaker Paul Strand in New York)

(Image credit: (The Lane Collection, Image Courtesy Museum of Fine Arts, Boston))

(Image credit: (The Lane Collection, Image Courtesy Museum of Fine Arts, Boston)In the late 1920s, Sheeler was commissioned to photograph the Ford Motor Company's River Rouge plant, in Michigan, when the co)

(Image credit: (The Lane Collection, Image Courtesy Museum of Fine Arts, Boston))

(Image credit: (The Lane Collection, Image Courtesy Museum of Fine Arts, Boston)**Charles Sheeler from Doylestown to Detroit is on view through Nov. 5, at the Museum of Fine Arts Boston**)

Sarah Eberspacher
Sarah Eberspacher

Sarah Eberspacher is an associate editor at TheWeek.com. She has previously worked as a sports reporter at The Livingston County Daily Press & Argus and The Arizona Republic. She graduated from Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism.

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