Charles Green Shaw

Snyder Fine Art, New York
Acquired by the present owner from the above, by 1995

By the time the present work was completed in 1939, Charles Green Shaw was particularly concerned with becoming involved with the war effort and specifically spoke in his journals of his desire to support the British War Relief Society. The resulting stylistic influence that the war had on his work included him incorporating abstract motifs inspired by the patterning of the camouflage of military uniforms. Shaw later sent Skyscrapers to Washington D.C. in the fall of 1940 and while the details of the loan are unknown, it could be suggested that he sought to lend his design for fundraising efforts or to exhibit a work that reflected his own preoccupations with the war.