The photograph offered here was used in conjunction with Sheeler’s exhibition at The Museum of Modern Art in 1939, his first major museum show. Comprised of paintings, drawings, and photographs, the exhibition included 14 photographs of Chartres. These studies had been made in 1929, when Sheeler was in Europe for Stuttgart’s
Film und Foto exhibition, where photographs from his River Rouge series were featured.
In his introduction to the 1939 catalogue, Sheeler wrote, ‘My interest in photography, paralleling that in painting, has been based on admiration for its possibility of accounting for the visual world with an exactitude not equaled by any other medium.’