Overcast
Charles G. Shaw
CHARLES G. SHAW, c1934. OIL AND OIL STICK ON PAPERBOARD.
Definitions of the abstract are loose. What is an abstraction to one person is figurative reality to another, and the movement of American Abstraction is loosely defined with each practitioner understanding their role and subject matter differently. For Shaw, his ‘Plastic Polygons', as he called them, were not abstractions of the New York architecture but truthful depictions of concrete objects, and he coined the movement ‘concretionism’. The works are pioneering, and helped lay the foundations for so many artists that followed, but he was painting in a time when abstract art of any sense was not fully accepted by the critical vanguard or the commercial collectors. Soft palette and sharp lines create an atmosphere, but the work is mostly unemotional or expressive - instead, they are an attempt to depict the beauty of a rigorous system through form and color. For years Shaw painted in the series, and with each show and painting he moved the dial slowly to create an environment of acceptance to more radical forms.