Charles G. Shaw

Charles Green Shaw was a prominent early American abstract artist. After a career in journalism in the 1920s, writing about the New York social scene for magazines including The New Yorker and Vanity Fair, he shifted to practicing art, taking a figure drawing class with Thomas Hart Benton at the Art Students League and informal lessons with George Benjamin Luks between 1926 and 1928.¹

In 1928, Shaw traveled to Europe, spending time in London and Paris and nurturing an interest in Cubism and Surrealism as these movements “encouraged experiments with shape and form.”² After this initial trip across the Atlantic, Shaw’s artistic career took off. He began exhibiting his works at the Gallery of Living Artists, Detroit Institute of Arts, and Valentine Gallery. Following a group exhibition at Paul Reinhardt Galleries in 1937, Shaw became known as one of the ‘Park Avenue Cubists’ along with Albert Gallatin, George L.K. Morris, and Suzy Frelinghuysen due to their privileged backgrounds and commitment to adapting the modernist styles they observed in Europe to the American landscape.³

In creating his abstractions, Shaw took inspiration from the New York cityscape and atmosphere. He experimented with a variety of media, working in oil, crafting collages with sand and pieces of fabric, and carving wood reliefs. All his works explore the possibilities of spatial positioning and the multitudes of perspectives, emphasizing his “fundamental interest in form.”⁴ In addition to visual art, he continued his literary pursuits throughout his life, writing poetry and children’s books, such as It Looked Like Spilt Milk, published in 1947.

Shaw was a founding member of the American Abstract Artists group, promoting the creation and appreciation of abstract art, as well as a member of the Museum of Modern Art Advisory Board from 1936-1941. Today, his works can be found in the collections of the Art Institute of Chicago, the National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C., and the Whitney Museum of American Art.

1. Emily Lenz, “Charles Green Shaw (1892-1974): Evolution of an Artist, 1926-1946,” in Charles Green Shaw (1892-1974): The 1930s & 1940s (D. Wigmore Fine Art, 2007), 70; Buck Pennington, “The ‘Floating World’ in the Twenties: The Jazz Age and Charles Green Shaw,” Archives of American Art Journal 20 no. 4 (1980): 21.
2. Henry Adams, “Charles Green Shaw (1892-1974): A Portrait in Words,” in Charles Green Shaw (1892-1974): The 1930s & 1940s (D. Wigmore Fine Art, 2007), 7.
3. Debra Brickner Balken, “The Park Avenue Cubists: Gallatin, Morris, Frelinghuysen and Shaw,” in The Park Avenue Cubists: Gallatin, Morris, Frelinghuysen, and Shaw, ed. Debra Brickner Balken and Robert S. Lubar (Ashgate, 2002), 3.
4. Leah Rosenblatt, “Charles G. Shaw: Works,” in The Park Avenue Cubists: Gallatin, Morris, Frelinghuysen, and Shaw, ed. Debra Birckner Balken and Robert S. Lubar (Ashgate, 2002), 72.