Charles Green Shaw

Charles Green Shaw (1892–1974) was an American painter and early advocate of geometric abstraction. Born into a wealthy New York family, Shaw did not begin painting until his late thirties. A 1914 graduate of Yale University, he also completed a year of architectural studies at Columbia University, an experience that later influenced the structural clarity and geometry of his paintings.

Shaw continued his artistic education in Paris by visiting museums and galleries. Between 1930 and 1932 his work 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 eventually developed into his most famous works, the shaped canvases he called Plastic Polygons.

The 1930s were highly productive years for Shaw. In 1934 he held his first one-man exhibition at the Valentine Dudensing Gallery in New York. In 1935 he met Albert Gallatin and George L.K. Morris, who became important supporters of his work. Gallatin later organized the exhibition Five Contemporary American Concretionists in 1936, which included Shaw along with John Ferren, Morris, Alexander Calder, and Charles Biederman. The exhibition later traveled to Paris and London.

In 1937 Shaw became a founding member of the American Abstract Artists and exhibited six works in the group’s first annual exhibition. The catalogue for the organization’s 1938 exhibition included his essay, “A Word to the Objector,” in which he wrote that abstract painting was “an appeal to one’s…aesthetic emotion alone….” Shaw was deeply involved with the group, helping edit catalogues, secure sponsors, and organize exhibitions.

Later in life Shaw explored aspects of Abstract Expressionism in the 1950s before returning to a more reductive approach in the 1960s that reflected elements of Minimalism. His later works are marked by bold forms and a strong graphic sensibility. Shaw died in 1974.