Edward Shein

Explore Selected Works

John Storrs, Auto Tower, Industrial Forms (part A), c. 1922, cast and painted concrete, Gift of Deborah and Ed Shein, 2008.33.2

Auto Tower, Industrial Forms (part A)

John Storrs · c. 1922 · cast and painted concrete ·  Accession ID  2008.33.2

John Storrs, Auto Tower, Industrial Forms (part B), c. 1922, cast and painted concrete, Gift of Deborah and Ed Shein, 2011.1.1

Auto Tower, Industrial Forms (part B)

John Storrs · c. 1922 · cast and painted concrete ·  Accession ID  2011.1.1

This free-standing sculpture is a French window with a teal-colored frame and black, leather-lined glass panes standing on a flat, shallow base. Each door is made up of four, vertically stacked, equally sized panes. The doors are hinged on a narrow frame and open with small, clear knobs placed next to the second pane down from the top. The doors are slightly ajar. Black writing in capital block letters on the top surface of the base is legible in this photograph. It reads, “FRESH WIDOW COPYRIGHT ROSE SELAVY 1920.”
Marcel Duchamp, Fresh Widow, original 1920, fabricated 1964, painted wood, glass, black leather, paper, and transparent tape, Gift of Deborah and Ed Shein, 2008.33.1

Fresh Widow

Marcel Duchamp · original 1920, fabricated 1964 · painted wood, glass, black leather, paper, and transparent tape ·  Accession ID  2008.33.1

Bold strokes and fainter smudges of black, blue, red, brown, and white dance across a white ground in this painting to suggest an abstracted seascape. A long, horizontal black line three-quarters of the way up the canvas suggests the horizon line. An arched line above seems supported by diagonal lines at the left and right edge, to suggest the span of an arched bridge in the distance. Blue squiggles are mostly contained within the center of the composition to suggest water while brown lines and red marks fill the lower corners, perhaps alluding to a beach or shoreline. The artist signed the work with black letters and the date in the lower right corner: “Marin 52.” The frame has been painted white in the corners and tan on each side, with darker brown lines separating the alternating bands of white and light brown.
John Marin, The Written Sea, 1952, oil on canvas, Gift of Deborah and Ed Shein, 2009.12.1

The Written Sea

John Marin · 1952 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  2009.12.1

A tall, rocky, pyramid-shaped mountain rising sharply from flat field of snow and silhouetted against bands of steel-gray clouds nearly fills this horizontal landscape painting. Narrow bands of snow rest in the crevices of the dark brown mountain, especially on the cliff-like face to our right. A much lower, flat-topped butte in the distance to our right has cobalt-blue shadows. Near the foot of the mountain and at the bottom center of the composition, one person, tiny in scale, rides in a sled pulled by several dogs while another person pushes at the back. The horizon comes less than a quarter of the way up the composition and the sky above and around the mountain is a blanket of gray clouds shaded indigo blue on their undersides. The artist signed the work with dark paint against the white snow in the lower right corner: “Rockwell Kent.”
Rockwell Kent, Citadel, 1932-1933, oil on canvas mounted on plywood, Gift of Deborah and Edward Shein, 2013.155.1

Citadel

Rockwell Kent · 1932-1933 · oil on canvas mounted on plywood ·  Accession ID  2013.155.1