Charles Sheeler: Capturing the Machine Age Born in Philadelphia in 1883, Charles Rettrew Sheeler Jr.’s artistic journey began not with a traditional path of classical training, but with instruction in industrial drawing and applied arts at the School of Industrial Art. This early exposure to the burgeoning world of industry would profoundly shape his later work, leading him away from purely representational art and toward a uniquely American style – Precisionism. His formal education included time at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, where he studied under William Merritt Chase, a…