Charles Sheeler (1883-1965)

In 1956, Charles Sheeler visited his friend Ansel Adams in San Francisco. Inspired by his landscape photographs, he began to explore Yosemite as a source of subject matter. The resulting works, such as Sun, Rocks and Trees (1959, Addison Gallery of American Art, Phillips Academy, Andover, Massachusetts), are some of Sheeler's only pure landscapes. In these paintings, "Sheeler deliberately avoided both the dramatic views of heroic mountains and the close-up examination of nature's floor that were Adams's stock-in-trade. Instead, to express nature's density, he painted an all-over pattern extending beyond the visual field both vertically and horizontally." (C. Troyen, E.E. Hirshler, Charles Sheeler: Paintings and Drawings, Boston, Massachusetts, 1987, p. 216) Perhaps also inspired by this trip, The Great Tree embodies the all-over aesthetic of Sheeler's Yosemite works, creating an almost abstract, camouflage-like representation by focusing not on the picturesque of nature but rather its patterns.