Shipboard
George Copeland Ault
American Art
Depicting a cluster of smokestacks, ducts, and pipes on an ocean liner, this drawing features the kinds of mechanical and industrial imagery embraced by Precisionist artists as icons of modern America. A style that arose in the 1920s, Precisionism was characterized by simplified geometric forms and an absence of human beings. Here George Copeland Ault cropped the view of the ship’s machinery in order to focus attention on the aesthetic potential of his subject—the play of rounded and linear shapes and dark and light tones—rather than its practical function.
MEDIUM
Graphite on medium, cream, slightly textured, wove paper
DATES
1924
DIMENSIONS
Sheet: 9 x 6 in. (22.9 x 15.2 cm) (show scale)
SIGNATURE
Signed in graphite, upper left: "G.C. Ault '24."
COLLECTIONS
American Art
ACCESSION NUMBER
2007.46
CREDIT LINE
Gift of Manhattan Art Investments, LP
MUSEUM LOCATION
This item is not on view
CAPTION
George Copeland Ault (American, 1891â1948). Shipboard, 1924. Graphite on medium, cream, slightly textured, wove paper, Sheet: 9 x 6 in. (22.9 x 15.2 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Gift of Manhattan Art Investments, LP, 2007.46 (Photo: Brooklyn Museum, 2007.46_PS2.jpg)
IMAGE
overall, 2007.46_PS2.jpg. Brooklyn Museum photograph, 2010
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RIGHTS STATEMENT
Orphaned work
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