Most 20th-century artists feel the presence of a little black rival in their studios. A round glass eye seems to stare fixedly over their shoulders and to imply, with an occasional clicking wink, that the camera can see and record better than they do.
In 1909, a young Philadelphia-born artist named Charles Sheeler took a trip to Paris, gazed at the Cubist experiments of Picasso and Braque, and came home an abstractionist. For a living he became a photographer, but his Art, which he spelled with a capital A, was safely outside the world his camera saw. Only two things bothered him:...
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