Charles Green Shaw

Charles Green Shaw, born into a wealthy New York family, began painting when he was in his late thirties. A 1914 graduate of Yale, Shaw also completed a year of architectural studies at Columbia University.

Shaw continued his artistic education in Paris by visiting numerous museums and galleries. From 1930 to 1932 Shaw's paintings evolved from a style imitative of Cubism to one directly inspired by it, though simplified and more purely geometric. Returning to the United States in 1933, Shaw began a series of abstracted cityscapes of skyscrapers he called Manhattan Motifs which evolved into his most famous works, the shaped canvases he called Plastic Polygons. The 1930's were productive years for Shaw. He showed his paintings in numerous group exhibitions, both in New York and abroad, and was also given several one-man exhibitions. Shaw had his first one-man exhibition at the Valentine Dudensing Gallery in New York in 1934, which included 25 Manhattan Motif paintings and 8 abstract works. In the spring of 1935 Shaw was introduced to Albert Gallatin and George L.K. Morris. Gallatin was so impressed with Shaw's work, he broke a policy against solo exhibitions at his museum, the Gallery of Living Art, and offered Shaw an exhibition there. In the summer of 1935 Shaw traveled to Paris with Gallatin and Morris who provided introductions to many great painters. Shaw regularly spent time with John Ferren and Jean Hélion. The following year Gallatin organized an exhibition called Five Contemporary American Concretionists at the Reinhardt Galleries that included Shaw, Ferren, and Morris, as well as Alexander Calder and Charles Biederman. The exhibition traveled to Paris at the Galerie Pierre and to London at the Mayor Gallery with A.E. Gallatin replacing Calder as the fifth artist. In 1937 Shaw became a founding member of the American Abstract Artists and exhibited 6 works in the first annual exhibition at the Squibb Building in April. The 1938 American Abstract Artists' annual exhibition catalogue contained eleven essays by members with the opening essay by Shaw. His article, "A Word to the Objector," expressed his profound belief that abstract painting was "an appeal to one's…aesthetic emotion alone…." Shaw was very active within the group in the early years, editing the catalogues, seeking sponsors for exhibitions, and locating exhibition spaces. Shaw had two solo exhibitions at the Museum of Non-Objective Painting in 1940 and 1941 and served on the Advisory Board of the Museum of Modern Art from 1936 to 1941.

In the latter part of his life, Shaw turned to Abstract Expressionism during the 1950's, and then back to his roots with a variant of Minimalism in the 1960's. His style grew bolder and showed a strong graphic sense. He died in 1974. Among the collections with works by Charles Green Shaw are the Art Institute of Chicago, IL; Brooklyn Museum, NY; Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; Guggenheim Museum, New York, NY; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY; Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY; and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, CA.