Charles Sheeler (1883-1965)

An intriguing composition of both landscape and still life, Charles Sheeler’s Nativity fuses references to the artist’s creative, personal and academic lives in a Magical Realist composition, which the artist retained as a favorite in his collection until his death. The nativity theme and meticulous style reflect Sheeler’s admiration and study of Northern Renaissance altarpieces, while the satirical humor and voluptuous pair of legs in the foreground perhaps reflect his new marriage to Musya Sokolova, a Russian ballerina known for her fun-loving spirit. Meanwhile, the wide-eyed cow recalls the work of fellow artist Peter Blume.

In an unpublished letter to the late owners of the present work, Carol Troyen enthused, “Nativity continues to fascinate me--I learned recently that, in addition to taking photographs of the Metropolitan Museum's collections in the 1940s, Sheeler also wrote occasional articles for their Bulletin, including one on Andrea Mantegna's Adoration of the Shepherds which appeared just about the time your picture was painted. The notion that he was thinking about Renaissance Nativities and Adorations adds a bit of intrigue to your Nativity and helps explain--or perhaps really heightens the mystery about--the rustic stone arch in your picture. And I imagine a sense of one-upmanship with Peter Blume (who'd just won an important award that year) was on his mind, as well as his impending marriage to Musya. What a wonderful, provocative picture!...Nativity is one of Sheeler's most intriguing works, and I have a hunch it is one of his most beautifully painted as well (he admired Holbein and the Flemish primitives, aspiring to their clear color and subtle, pristine surfaces, and I suspect he came as close as he ever did to that style in Nativity.)”