Charles Green Shaw

Shaw was born in New York City to Eva (née Morris) and Charles Green Shaw, a merchant.[2] This was a wealthy family connected to the F. W. Woolworth Company fortune.[6] However, Shaw was orphaned at a young age—his mother died when he was just three.[5][6] As a result, he and his twin brother were raised by their uncle, Frank D. Shaw.[8] He grew up spending summers in Newport, Rhode Island and Christmas at Mrs. William K. Vanderbilt's balls.[9][5] He began drawing when he was six; he wrote and illustrated his first book, The Costumes of Nations, when he was nine.[8][5]

Shaw attended the Friends Seminary and Berkley School.[5] He graduated from Yale University in 1914.[6] While at Yale, he befriended Cole Porter, joined St. Anthony Hall, and contributed artwork to campus humor magazine, The Yale Record.[5][10] He studied architecture at Columbia University from 1914 to 1915.[6][2]

Shaw was a Lieutenant in World War I, first receiving an assignment as a supply officer stationed in England.[9][5] Then, he was assigned to the Army Air Force at Kelly Airfield in Texas.[5] Over the course of eighteen months in the service, he never saw active duty.[5] After the war, Shaw tried to follow the business model set by his family, and soon found he was ill-suited for selling real estate in New York City.[9][5]

Shaw started his career as a writer by the early 1920s.[9] He worked as a freelance writer for magazines such as Harper's Bazaar, The New Yorker, The Smart Set, and Vanity Fair, focusing on theater and café society.[6][11] Shaw was "the master of the bon mot, the glib remark, the clever definition."[5] He frequently created illustrations to go with his articles.[5] Along with "his witty and insightful articles," Shaw was a journalist and a novelist.[6] His articles were published in magazines such as Antiques, Connoisseur, House & Garden, and Life.[2] He interviewed Adele Astaire, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Sinclair Lewis, George Jean Nathan, Michael Strange.[5] One of his books with "lasting merit" is The Lowdown, a collection celebrity character sketches.[11]

In April 1936, Shaw decided to write and illustrate books for children.[12] In May 1939, he finally found an editor interested in his ideas—Margaret Wise Brown, who would go on to write the children's classic Goodnight Moon.[12] Shaw published dozens of books for children, including It Looked Like Spilt Milk in 1947.[2][11] He also illustrated books for Brown.[2]

In 1952 when he was 62 years old, Shaw started writing poetry and had some 1,200 poems published in Literary Review, the New York Tribune, Poetry Digest, and Trace.[2] He also released four poetry collections.[2]

As an artist, Shaw was "essentially self-taught."[13] In 1927, he enrolled in Thomas Hart Benton's class at the Art Students League of New York.[13][5] He also studied privately with George Luks from 1926 to 1928.[5][13] In 1929, he lived in Paris for a month, visiting museums and meeting artists.[3][5] He found a great deal of inspiration in London, going to the park and sketching every day.[9][5] Shaw "considered himself a painter" when he returned to New York City in 1932.[5]

In 1933, he started a series of works called Plastic Polygon, working on this series of abstracted architectural paintings for about seven years.[6][3] Plastic Polygon included "architectural forms of the New York City skyline" and helped establish his reputation.[6] Shaw called his style of modern art "concretionist" because he painted "concrete objects" rather than abstractions.[5]

In 1934, Shaw had a solo exhibition at Valentine Gallery in New York City.[6] From May to October 1935, he also had a show at Gallery of Living Art that was organized by Albert Gallatin.[6][13] This was the first one-man show at the Gallery of Living Art; Gallatin said he broke his own rule because "Mr. Shaw is doing the most important abstract painting in America today."[13] The next year, Gallatin curated a show at Reinhardt Gallery called American Concretionists, which included Shaw's works and those of others.[6] Also in 1936, Shaw was a founding member of the American Abstract Artists and participated in their first annual exhibition.[6][14] This group was established "at a time when abstract art was met with strong critical resistance," and many such artists struggled to find galleries willing to display their work.[14]

In the 1940s and moving forward, Shaw shifted from the strict geometrical format of the polygon paintings, focusing on abstract expressionism.[6][4] He softened the color palette for some of his paintings.[6] He also explored another medium, making montages by mountings antique items related to games on fabric, such as game boards and antique playing and tarot cards.[6] In addition, he designed posters, book covers, and illustrated picture books.[2]

A significant figure in American abstract art, Shaw was the only American artist to have two solo exhibitions at Guggenheim Museum in his lifetime.[3] In total, he had thirty one-man shows in galleries, museums and traveling exhibitions in America, Europe, and Japan.[2]

Shaw was a member of American Abstract Artists, the Artists Equity Association (now called the New York Artists Equity Association), the Century Association, the Federation of Modern Painters & Sculptors, the Nantucket Art Association (now called the Artists Association of Nantucket), the Newport Art Association, the Poetry Society of America, and The Poetry Society.[2][15]

Shaw won the Michael Strange Poetry Award in 1954.[7]

The Nantucket Art Association gave Shaw the Nantucket Art Association Award in 1958, and first prize in 1960.[2][7]

Shaw was a noted collector of tobacciana.[5] In 1975, his collection sold at Christie's for £41,403.[16]

When he was 81 years old, Shaw died at his home at 340 East 57th Street in New York City on April 2, 1974[1] He bequeathed fifty boxes of archival materials to the Smithsonian's American Art Museum.[5][6] His papers include correspondence with F. Scott Fitzgerald, Clarence Darrow, Anita Loos, H. L. Mencken, and Cole Porter.[5]