Photographed by Scott Wolff. Scanned from a slide. Color corrected by Pat Cagney.

White Factory

Artist Niles Spencer (American, 1893 - 1952)

CultureAmerican

Date1928

MediumOil on canvas

DimensionsOverall: 20 x 25 5/8 in. (50.8 x 65.1 cm)
Overall, Frame: 25 x 30 3/4 in. (63.5 x 78.1 cm)

InscribedSigned lower right: Niles Spencer

Credit LineGift of Walter P. Chrysler, Jr.

Object number71.2227

On View

Chrysler Museum of Art, Gallery 222

Label TextNiles Spencer American, 1893–1952 White Factory, 1928 Oil on canvas With detachment and discipline, Niles Spencer transforms an urban landscape into a spare collection of flat shapes and patterns, a massive, man-made still life. Muted grays and browns add to the coolness and silence of this unpopulated industrial scene. Like fellow Precisionist painter Charles Sheeler, Spencer admired the purity and simplicity of factory and skyscraper architecture. The Museum of Modern Art in New York, founded in 1929, featured White Factory that same year in its first American art exhibition, celebrating Spencer and 18 other living artists. Gift of Walter P. Chrysler, Jr. 71.2227 ProvenanceDaniel Gallery, New York; Morton Goldsmith; Charles Berman; Hirschl Gallery had it in 1971 but returned unsold; Irvin Brenner, New York; Walter P. Chrysler, Jr.; Gift to the Chrysler Museum from Walter P. Chrysler, Jr., 1971. Exhibition History"Painting and Sculpture by Living Americans," Museum of Modern Art, New York, N.Y., December 2, 1930 - January 20, 1931. "Niles Spencer Memorial Exhibition," Museum of Modern Art, New York, N.Y., 1953-1954. University of Kentucky Traveling Niles Spencer Exhibition, 1965-1966. "Three Hundred Years of American Art in the Chrysler Museum," Chrysler Museum at Norfolk, Va., March 1 - July 4, 1976. "Niles Spencer," The Whitney Museum of American Art at Equitable Center, New York, N.Y., April 5 - June 20, 1990. "Behind the Seen: The Chrysler's Hidden Museum," Large Changing Gallery, Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk, Va., October 21, 2005 - February 19, 2006. "Making and Meaning: Selections from the Chrysler Museum of Art Collection," Baron and Ellin Gordon Art Galleries, Old Dominion University, Norfolk, VA, June 1 - August 11, 2013.Published ReferencesAlfred Hamilton Barr, Jr., _Paintings by Nineteen Living Americans_, exh. cat., Museum of Modern Art, New York, N.Y., 1930, no. 83. Dennis R. Anderson, _Three Hundred Years of American Art in the Chrysler Museum_, exh. cat., Norfolk, Va., 1975, 206. _The Chrysler Museum: Selections from the Permanent Collection, Norfolk, Virginia_ (Norfolk: Chrysler Museum, 1982), 100. Karal Ann Marling and Wendy Jeffers, _Niles Spencer_, exh. cat., Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, N.Y., 1990, 3, 7, 14. Martha N. Hagood and Jefferson C. Harrison, _American Art at the Chrysler Museum: Selected Paintings, Sculpture, and Drawings_ (Norfolk, Va.: Chrysler Museum of Art, 2005), 172-173, no. 107. ISBN: 0-940744-71-6