Charles Green Shaw (1892-1974)

Heavily influenced by his studies in Paris in the early 1930s, Charles Green Shaw was an advocate for abstract art in America during a time when regionalism and figurative art held center stage. As a founding member of the American Abstract Artists (AAA), Shaw sought to infuse the American art scene with this avant-garde style inspired by European Modernism. Shaw was also part of the Park Avenue Cubists, a small cohort of wealthy artists from New York who led lavish lifestyles and modeled their works after artists such as Picasso, Gris, Braque and Léger. The present work, with its softened edges and more expressive brushstrokes, illustrates Shaw’s divergence from a strict Cubist style during the 1950s and 60s. Edge of Dusk embraces the concurrent Abstract Expressionist aesthetic through overlapping organic forms that create a sense of three-dimensionality.