Morton Livingston Schamberg (October 15, 1881 – October 13, 1918) was an American modernist painter and photographer. He was one of the first American artists to explore the aesthetic qualities of industrial subjects.. Schamberg is considered a pioneer of the

Precisionism Precisionism was a modernist art movement that emerged in the United States after World War I. Influenced by Cubism, Purism, and Futurism, Precisionist artists reduced subjects to their essential geometric shapes, eliminated detail, and often us ...

art movement, and one of the first American adopters of

Cubist Cubism is an early-20th-century avant-garde art movement that revolutionized European painting and sculpture, and inspired related movements in music, literature and architecture. In Cubist artwork, objects are analyzed, broken up and reassemble ...

style..

Early life and education

Schamberg was born in

Philadelphia Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania#Municipalities, largest city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the List of United States cities by population, sixth-largest city i ...

on October 15, 1881... He was the youngest child in a German Jewish family.. His German-born father, Henry, was a cattle dealer; his mother (born in

Pennsylvania Pennsylvania (; ( Pennsylvania Dutch: )), officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a state spanning the Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes regions of the United States. It borders Delaware to its southeast, ...

) died when he was a child. Schamberg graduated from Philadelphia's Central High School. He earned a degree in architecture from the

University of Pennsylvania The University of Pennsylvania (also known as Penn or UPenn) is a private research university in Philadelphia. It is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and is ranked among the highest-regarded universitie ...

in 1903. In 1902, however, he had discovered an interest in art when he attended a class taught by

William Merritt Chase William Merritt Chase (November 1, 1849October 25, 1916) was an American painter, known as an exponent of Impressionism and as a teacher. He is also responsible for establishing the Chase School, which later would become Parsons School of Design. ...

in the Netherlands. He took another class with Chase during the summer of 1903, in England, and then studied under him for three years at the

Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (PAFA) is a museum and private art school in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

. It was through Chase's classes that he met fellow student Charles Sheeler, who would be his close friend for the rest of his life. Schamberg met up with Sheeler in Italy in 1908 and together they studied works of the Renaissance masters. Schamberg moved on to Paris later that year, where he became an associate of Leo and

Gertrude Stein Gertrude Stein (February 3, 1874 – July 27, 1946) was an American novelist, poet, playwright, and art collector. Born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in the Allegheny West neighborhood and raised in Oakland, California, Stein moved to Paris ...

's circle of avant-garde artists and writers. Schamberg's earliest works were heavily influenced by Chase. After studying the works of European artists in Paris, however, his style shifted to modernism, with influences from Cézanne,

Matisse Henri Émile Benoît Matisse (; 31 December 1869 – 3 November 1954) was a French visual artist, known for both his use of colour and his fluid and original draughtsmanship. He was a drawing, draughtsman, printmaking, printmaker, and sculptur ...

, and Picasso evident in his works created between 1909 and 1912. He returned to Philadelphia in mid-1909, and he and Sheeler rented studios in the same downtown building as well as a farmhouse in rural

Bucks County Bucks County is a county in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. As of the 2020 census, the population was 646,538, making it the fourth-most populous county in Pennsylvania. Its county seat is Doylestown. The county is named after the English ...

for use on weekends and during the summer.

Career

Morton Livingston Schamberg - Telephone (1916)

Schamberg had his first solo art show in mid-1910, at the McClees Galleries in Philadelphia. The show included his early landscapes and some of his larger scale portraits; these were mostly of his friend Fanette Reider and were painted between 1908 and 1912. Around 1912, he began working as a photographer to earn money, initially as a portraitist before focusing on urban architecture. Schamberg participated in the landmark 1913

Armory Show The 1913 Armory Show, also known as the International Exhibition of Modern Art, was a show organized by the Association of American Painters and Sculptors in 1913. It was the first large exhibition of modern art in America, as well as one of ...

in New York, showing five of his modernist paintings. By 1915, Schamberg began painting mechanical forms, possibly through the influence of

New York Dada New York Dada was a regionalized extension of Dada, an artistic and cultural movement between the years 1913 and 1923. Usually considered to have been instigated by Marcel Duchamp's '' Fountain'' exhibited at the first exhibition of the Society o ...

artists such as

Marcel Duchamp Henri-Robert-Marcel Duchamp (, , ; 28 July 1887 – 2 October 1968) was a French painter, sculptor, chess player, and writer whose work is associated with Cubism, Dada, and conceptual art. Duchamp is commonly regarded, along with Pablo Picasso ...

and

Francis Picabia Francis Picabia (: born Francis-Marie Martinez de Picabia; 22January 1879 – 30November 1953) was a French avant-garde painter, poet and typographist. After experimenting with Impressionism and Pointillism, Picabia became associated with Cubism ...

. These late paintings ranged from precise illustrations to variants on

Fauvist Fauvism /ˈfoʊvɪzm̩/ is the style of ''les Fauves'' (French for "the wild beasts"), a group of early 20th-century modern artists whose works emphasized painterly qualities and strong colour over the representational or realistic values retai ...

and

Futurist Futurists (also known as futurologists, prospectivists, foresight practitioners and horizon scanners) are people whose specialty or interest is futurology or the attempt to systematically explore predictions and possibilities abo ...

styles. The only sculptural work credited to Schamberg that reflects a 'pure'

Dada Dada () or Dadaism was an art movement of the European avant-garde in the early 20th century, with early centres in Zürich, Switzerland, at the Cabaret Voltaire (in 1916). New York Dada began c. 1915, and after 1920 Dada flourished in Pari ...

ist sensibility is the assemblage ''

God In monotheistic thought, God is usually viewed as the supreme being, creator, and principal object of faith. Swinburne, R.G. "God" in Honderich, Ted. (ed)''The Oxford Companion to Philosophy'', Oxford University Press, 1995. God is typically ...

'', but this attribution has been questioned by art historians who believe he photographed it, but that it was a collaboration with Baroness

Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven Elsa Baroness von Freytag-Loringhoven (née Else Hildegard Plötz; (12 July 1874 – 14 December 1927) was a German-born avant-garde visual artist and poet, who was active in Greenwich Village, New York, from 1913 to 1923, where her radical self ...

. Schamberg was a pacifist, and his distress over World War I ultimately caused him to drop the subject of machines to work in watercolors, only one of which has survived: a still life of a bowl of flowers. An associate of art collector

Walter Conrad Arensberg Walter Conrad Arensberg (April 4, 1878 – January 29, 1954) was an American art collector, critic and poet. His father was part owner and president of a crucible steel company. He majored in English and philosophy at Harvard University. With his w ...

, Schamberg exhibited a painting and a drawing in the first show of Arensberg's

Society of Independent Artists Society of Independent Artists was an association of American artists founded in 1916 and based in New York. Background Based on the French Société des Artistes Indépendants, the goal of the society was to hold annual exhibitions by avant-gard ...

, in 1917.

Death

Schamberg died October 13, 1918, in the

1918 flu pandemic The 1918–1920 influenza pandemic, commonly known by the misnomer Spanish flu or as the Great Influenza epidemic, was an exceptionally deadly global influenza pandemic caused by the H1N1 influenza A virus. The earliest documented case was ...

. He was buried on October 15, which would have been his 37th birthday. He had been living in a Philadelphia hotel with his father, who also died in the pandemic.

Exhibitions

*''Paintings by Morton L. Schamberg (1881-1918)'',

Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (PAFA) is a museum and private art school in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

, Philadelphia, November 21 - December 24, 1963 *''Morton L. Schamberg (1881-1918)'',

Zabriskie Gallery The Zabriskie Gallery was founded in New York City by Virginia Zabriskie in 1954. Early years Virginia Zabriskie started the art gallery with a one-dollar down payment. It had formerly been the Korman Gallery, a cooperative that included the pai ...

, New York City, January 6–25, 1964 *''Morton Livingston Schamberg (1881-1918)'', Salander-O'Reilly Galleries, New York City, November 3 - December 31, 1982. Toured January 22, 1983 - March 27, 1984, to

Columbus Museum of Art The Columbus Museum of Art (CMA) is an art museum in downtown Columbus, Ohio. Formed in 1878 as the Columbus Gallery of Fine Arts (its name until 1978), it was the first art museum to register its charter with the state of Ohio. The museum collect ...

, Columbus, Ohio; Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia;

Milwaukee Art Museum The Milwaukee Art Museum (MAM) is an art museum in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Its collection contains nearly 25,000 works of art. Location and Visit Located on the lakefront of Lake Michigan, the Milwaukee Art Museum is one of the largest art museu ...

, Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

Gallery

File:'Abstract Landscape' by Morton Livingston Schamberg, c. 1910-13.jpg, ''Abstract Landscape'', c. 1910–1913 File:Schamberg Study of a Girl (Fanette Reider).jpg, ''Study of a Girl (Fanette Reider)'', c. 1911 File:Morton Livingston Schamberg - Self-Portrait - 2011.5 - Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art.jpg, ''Self Portrait'', c. 1911 File:Morton Livingston Schamberg Figure 1913 Amon Carter Museum.jpg, ''Figure'', 1913 File:Morton Livingston Schamberg - Painting (formerly Machine) - 1941.673 - Yale University Art Gallery.jpg, ''Painting (formerly Machine)'', 1916 File:Schamberg Painting VIII.jpg, ''Painting VIII (Mechanical Abstraction)'', 1916 File:Schamberg Painting IV.jpg, ''Painting IV (Mechanical Abstraction)'', 1916 File:Study for "The Well" MET sf68.115.1.jpg, ''Study for "The Well"'', c. 1916 File:-View of Rooftops- MET DP105550.jpg, ''View of Rooftops'', 1917; a single print of this photograph was made and given to Charles Sheeler File:Morton L. Schamberg - Bowl of Flowers - 1986.27 - Smithsonian American Art Museum.jpg, ''Bowl of Flowers'', 1918

References

External links

* * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Schamberg, Morton Livingston 19th-century American painters 19th-century American male artists American male painters 20th-century American painters 20th-century American photographers Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts alumni Central High School (Philadelphia) alumni Artists from Philadelphia American people of German-Jewish descent Jewish American artists Deaths from Spanish flu 1881 births 1918 deaths Precisionism Students of William Merritt Chase Cubist artists American dadaist American pacifists 20th-century American male artists