Origin: Circa 1920 in the United States
Pioneers: Charles Demuth, Charles Sheeler, Elsie Driggs, Ralston Crawford, Louis Lozowick, Georgia O’Keeffe
Related Movements: Cubism, Futurism, Pop Art
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 used planes of light to create a sense of crisp focus and suggest the sleekness and sheen of machine forms. At the height of its popularity during the 1920s and early 1930s, Precisionism celebrated the new American landscape of skyscrapers, bridges, and factories in a form that has also been called "Cubist-Realism." The term "Precisionism" was first coined in the mid-1920s, possibly by Museum of Modern Art director Alfred H. Barr although according to Amy Dempsey the term "Precisionism" was coined by Charles Sheeler. Painters working in this style were also known as the "Immaculates", which was the more commonly used term at the time. The stiffness of both art-historical labels suggests the difficulties contemporary critics had in attempting to characterize these artists...
American artists whose work has been labeled as reflective of Precisionism include: George Ault, Ralston Crawford, Francis Criss, Stuart Davis, Charles Demuth, Georgia O'Keeffe, Preston Dickinson, Elsie Driggs, Louis Lozowick, Gerald Murphy, Charles Sheeler, Niles Spencer, Morton Schamberg, Joseph Stella, Charles Rosen, Dale Nichols, Millard Sheets, Virginia Berresford, Henry Billings, Peter Blume, Stefan Hirsch, Edmund Lewandowski, John Storrs, Miklos Suba, Sandor Bernath, Herman Trunk, Arnold Wiltz, Clarence Holbrook Carter, Edgar Corbridge and the photographers Paul Strand and Lewis Hine. The movement had no major presence outside the United States, although it did influence Australian art where Jeffrey Smart adopted its principles. Although no manifesto was ever created, some of the artists were friends and frequently exhibited at the same galleries. Georgia O'Keeffe's husband, photographer and art dealer Alfred Stieglitz, was a highly regarded mentor for the group and was especially supportive of Paul Strand.
Precisionism had an indirect influence on the later styles known as Magic Realism, Pop Art, and Photorealism, but it was largely considered a dated "period style" by the 1950s, though its influence on advertising imagery and stage and set design continued throughout the twentieth century. Its two most famous practitioners are Charles Demuth and Charles Sheeler...
Source: Wikipedia, © Ralston Crawford, photo credit: Thomas Hawk