Chimney and Water Tower, Charles Demuth (1931)
Charles Henry Buckius Demuth (November 8, 1883 – October 23, 1935) was an American painter who specialized in watercolors and turned to oils late in his career, developing a style of painting known as Precisionism.
Charles Demuth’s desire to create a new, modern, and quintessentially American art led him to explore the industrial sites of his hometown, Lancaster, Pennsylvania, for subject matter. In a series of paintings known as “industrials,” he transformed a seemingly mundane, unartful subject—the American factory—into an eloquent artistic statement. By paring down the smokestacks, water towers, and grain elevators to their elemental, streamlined shapes, he imbued them with a monumentality, elegance, and grandeur.
