American Modernism: The Shein Collection at the National Gallery of Art

Charles Demuth,
End of the Parade: Coatesville, Pa., 1920
tempera and pencil on board
Collection of Deborah and Ed Shein

American Modernism: The Shein Collection at the National Gallery of Art One of the finest, most selective private collections of works by the first wave of American modernists will premiere at the National Gallery of Art, Washington, from May 16, 2010, through January 2, 2011]]>

Source: National Gallery of Art, Washington
American Modernism: The Shein Collection presents 20 masterpieces by Patrick Henry Bruce, Stuart Davis, Charles Demuth, Arthur Dove, Marcel Duchamp, Marsden Hartley, John Marin, Georgia O’Keeffe, Man Ray, Charles Sheeler, and other renowned artists. The collection demonstrates the importance of the early American modernists in the development of the avant-garde in the United States and Europe during the 20th century.

In 2008 and 2009, the Gallery received three gifts from Edward and Deborah Shein: John Storrs’ Auto Tower, Industrial Forms (c. 1922), Marcel Duchamp’s Fresh Widow (1920/1964), and John Marin’s The Written Sea (1952). The Sheins intend to continue making gifts of important works from their collection with their ultimate goal of giving all 20 of their masterworks to the Gallery.

“The Sheins have succeeded in building a collection that offers a remarkably full and nuanced account of the first avant-garde in the United States,” said Earl A. Powell III, director, National Gallery of Art. “Their commitment to the Gallery and its public mission to collect, preserve, exhibit, and educate is evident not only in their willingness to live without their entire collection for more than six months, but also through their gifts and promised gifts. We are tremendously grateful to the Sheins for contributing in such an intelligent and substantive way to our programs.”

The exhibition is the latest in a series at the Gallery devoted to American modernism, including one-person shows of the work of Georgia O’Keeffe (1987), John Marin (1990), Paul Strand (1990), and Charles Sheeler (2006), as well as ambitious overviews of the period, Modern Art in America: Alfred Stieglitz and His New York Galleries (2001) and Twentieth-Century American Art: The Ebsworth Collection (2000).