NARRATOR: 

The factory is dormant, and the workers are nowhere to be found. But Charles Sheeler’s Aerial Gyrations is anything but a still life — shadows collide, images jockey for space, and the whole scene reverberates. In 1953, the year this was painted, America was undergoing a similar sense of movement. Sheeler’s factory reflects the vitality, power, and optimism of a rapidly developing nation.  

Sheeler called his paintings Precisionist. Reductive, controlled, and rational, these early paintings were inspired by the work of Cubists like Pablo Picasso. But Sheeler imbued them with a style all his own—one that reflected his background as a commercial photographer. Double exposures, transparent overlays, radical camera angles and pastel colors all combine to express the dynamic optimism Sheeler saw in the burgeoning American landscape.