Schamberg, Morton L.

Schamberg, Morton L. (1881–1918). American painter and photographer, born in Philadelphia. He was a pioneer of modernism in America, but his promising career was cut short when he died aged 36 in the terrible influenza epidemic of 1918. After studying architecture at the University of Pennsylvania (1899–1903), he went to the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (1903–6), where he was taught by Chase and became a friend of Sheeler. Between 1906 and 1912 he made several trips to Europe, during which he was influenced by various modern movements, particularly Cubism. In the next few years he moved towards abstraction; his machine-like imagery derived partly from Picabia and looked forward to Precisionism. He met Picabia through Sheeler, who also introduced him to Marcel Duchamp and Man Ray. Apart from Man Ray, Schamberg was the first American to create work directly related to Dada. The best-known example is God (Philadelphia Museum of Art, c. 1918), an assemblage of plumbing pipes—his only known sculpture. From 1913 Schamberg earned his living mainly as a photographer, concentrating on portraiture.