Charles Demuth, a well-known American Precisionist painter, created a series of paintings based on the architecture of Lancaster, Pennsylvania between 1927 and 1935. One of the paintings from this series is “Buildings, Lancaster,” which was painted in 1930. This painting depicts several structures adjacent to the grain elevator of My Egypt that were parts of the Eshelman Feed Company.
The painting is created with oil and graphite on composition board using precise lines and clear geometric shapes – a signature style of the Precisionist movement that Demuth was part of. The artwork is currently housed in the Whitney Museum of American Art. Through his paintings, Demuth celebrated mundane aspects of daily life such as factories, warehouses, and other urban areas.
It’s worth noting that Pennsylvania had an agricultural economy at that time, so it makes sense why Demuth would choose grain elevators and feed company structures as subjects for his art pieces. He used color variations within these rigid geometries to give an illusion of reflections or depth on surfaces such as windows or metal supports.
Overall, “Buildings, Lancaster” reflects Charles Demuth’s unique artistic perspective in depicting industrial architecture through precisionist techniques while honoring everyday objects overlooked by many artists during his time.
