First modern art movement, started after World War 1 and lasted till the late 1930s. Influenced by Cubism and Futurism, glorified the industrial era

1. Precisionism
An art style depicting the urban.

2. INTRODUCTION
• Precisionism (or Cubist Realism) is a style of representation
in which an object is rendered in a realistic manner, but
with an emphasis on its geometric form.
• Inspired by the development of Cubism in Europe, and by
the rapid growth of industrialization of North America in
the wake of innovators such as Henry Ford.
• In its emphasis on stylized angular forms it is also visually
somewhat similar to Art Deco.
• Charles Demuth and Charles Sheeler are the artists most
closely associated with Precisionism. The urban works of
Georgia O'Keeffe are also highly typical of this style.
City paintings of Edward Hopper and
Charles Sheeler

3. PRECISIONIST PAINTERS
• Charles Demuth 1883-1935
• Charles Sheeler 1883-1965
• Preston Dickinson 1891-1930
• Elsie Driggs 1898-1992
• Francis Criss 1901-1973
• Ralston Crawford 1906-1978
• Edmund Lewandowski 1914-1998
Charles Demuth
Charles Sheeler
Georgia O’Keffie

4. • This is a view of the Center Methodical
Episcopal Church, built in 1860.
• Designed in the English Baroque style, inspired
by Christopher Wren.
• Repeated diagonal ‘lines of force’ break the
sky into fragments, and the rest of the city
seems crystallized from multiple planes.
• Charles Demuth demonstrated with this
painting, that he could apply his Precisionist
style to more traditional subjects along with
modern ones.
AFTER SIR CHRISTOPHER WREN,1920

5. • Rather than a traditional landscape scene,
it depicts industrial architecture in
Pennsylvania, the hometown of Demuth.
• Despite abstract use of lines and planes,
subject is identifiable.
• Scene of rooftop machinery set against
windows, belonging to an adjacent factory
building.
• Was dedicated to his friend William Carlos
Williams, who wrote ‘There is nothing
sentimental about a machine’ and ‘A poem
is but a small machine of words’.
MACHINERY, 1920 ( CHARLES DEMUTH)

6. WHITE CANADIAN BARN, 1932(GEORGIA O’KEEFFE)
• The barn, as the artist depicts it, is
stark in colour and design, and
precisely delineated.
• Picture space divided into 3 distinct
parts; the sky, the building, the
ground.
• Unintentionally three-dimensional
look rendered to it due to the sombre
colouring and massive size.
• The artist distilled essential
geometric shapes from each
architectural element in the painting.

7. VASE OF FLOWERS, 1926
(PRESTON DICKINSON)
• Dickinson frequently worked in still life.
• Skill at representing traditional ideas in more
avant-garde ideas of perspective and
composition
• Object is of an illusionistic nature, however
the use of sharp edges for the table convey
the artist’s yearning for newer means of
representation.
• The ashtray with a cigarette on its rim is a
surprisingly modern touch, in spite of the
presence of classic still life objects

8. SOUTH OF SCRANTON, 1931(PETER BLUME)
• Though subjects tend to be mystifying and
with a Surrealist bent, Blume’s technique
possessed sharp clarity.
• The painting is an outcome of a road trip of
the artist, whereby he travelled from New
York through the coalfields of Scranton,
Pennsylvania, Bethlehem and finally South
Carolina.
• The artist, in an attempt to weld the scenes
and draw logical connections, explains that
he felt all ties breaking loose. A moment
when he felt the German sailors were
objects free in space, like birds.

9. • Storrs was the son of a Chicago architect
• His sculpture would always be influenced by
the native architecture of his city.
• Formal experiments with volume and space,
balance of vertical and horizontal masses, play
of light on polished surfaces
• Signal his interest in new architectural styles in
accordance with the new urban zoning
requirements
FORMS
IN
SPACE,
1927
(JOHN
STORRS)

10. WATER, 1945 (CHARLES SHEELER)
• Sheeler's experience as a photographer
influenced his Precisionist style of
painting, in which he emphasized the
geometric shapes of objects in a hard-edged,
clearly lit manner
• His interpretation of American industry
was somewhat idealized: workers are
never shown, and the machinery is
pristine and gleaming, free of any dirt or
smoke.

11. ROOFS AND SKY, 1939(LOUIS LOZOWICK)
• "From the innumerable choices which
our complex and tradition-laden
civilization presents to the artist, I have
chosen one which seems to suit my
training and temperament. I might
characterize it thus: Industry harnessed
by Man for the Benefit of Mankind.“
• The immediately recognizable New York
City landmark of the Empire State
Building is paired with the more generic
forms of the water tower and
smokestack in the foreground
• Bestows a heroic monumentality upon
two completely utilitarian mechanical
elements.

12. • A clamorous homage to William Carlos Williams'
imagist poem about a fire truck is abstract and stylized
• Demuth structured his work around simplified
forms—the red truck, the black high rises, the
glowing white street lamps, and of course the
brilliant gold 5s, three in full plus the curve of
one
• What makes "Figure 5" distinctly American are
the skyscrapers, the machinery, and the
references to advertising.
THE FIGURE 5 IN GOLD (1928)
(CHARLES DEMUTH

13. Morton Schamberg,
Telephone,1916
Joseph Stella,
Brooklyn Bridge, 1919–
1920

14. Charles Demuth,
Incense of a New
Church (1921)
Charles Sheeler,
Skyscrapers (1922)
John Storrs, Profile Head
with Cap, c. 1918, woodcut
on paper Smithsonian
American Art Museum

15. Stuart Davis, Steeple and
Street, 1922
Stuart Davis,
Lucky Strike, 1921
Charles Demuth,
Chimney and Watertower,
1931

16. THANK YOU.
37 ZEUS PITHAWALLA 38 GARIMA RAJPUT
39 MANASVI RANE 40 RITHIKA RAVISHANKAR
41 SHIVALI SANAP 42 VISHAKHA SAVATKAR